


in grief, Demeter circles the earth

by kindclaws



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Praimfaya | Radiation Wave, Angst with a Happy Ending, At the same time!, Dark Clarke Griffin, Established Relationship, F/M, Families of Choice, Female Friendship, Fix-It, Gen, Mutual Pining, Roadtrip, Season 3 AND season 5 divergent fuck season 4, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, dropship days vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 06:54:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 76,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23347246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindclaws/pseuds/kindclaws
Summary: "Two days ago, a ship came to Shallow Valley and slaughtered a village," Indra says, her voice dark and strained."Shallow Valley?" Bellamy asks, exchanging a confused look with Clarke. "I thought they were landlocked?""Not a ship from the sea," Indra snaps, a split second before Monty draws in a sharp, shocked breath. "A ship from thesky."Clarke understands before the others do. "You think Skaikru did it," she says softly.( or - the delinquents start their own society. Praimfaya never happens, but Eligius does. season 3 & 5 divergent. )
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Clarke Griffin & Raven Reyes, Monty Green & Clarke Griffin
Comments: 190
Kudos: 458





	1. a mother and a cipher

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CONTENT WARNINGS:** This fic leans HARD into ruthless Slytherin!Clarke, and she will be loved+forgiven by most characters and get a happy ending anyway. Canon-typical levels of violence and field medicine. A little bit of character death (no one who survives in canon dies here, and most who die in canon will survive. You are absolutely welcome to message me if you need more detailed spoilers, I don't judge.) There are plot points to do with a contagious sickness a-la epsiode 1x10 I Am Become Death, and they're not major but uh, I totally understand if that makes anyone need to click out of this fic because of recent major events. There's also one last major warning for this fic that I'm partially obscuring because I think the reveal will be worth it for most readers:  If the html doesn't work for you, the spoiler will also be in plaintext in the end notes of this chapter.
> 
>  **CONTENT WARNINGS (this chapter specifically):** injury + medical care for it, mild authoritarianism, unjustified corporal punishment, intentionally giving alcohol to an alcoholic, and a short+undescribed mention of vomiting.
> 
> Fic and chapter titles taken from the second version of Louise Gluck's [Persephone the Wanderer](https://thefloatinglibrary.com/2009/10/03/persephone-the-wanderer-louise-gluck-2/) poem.
> 
>  **PERMISSIONS:** I can't stop you from downloading and saving this fic locally, but I'd rather you didn't. I make frequent revisions, and if I ever decide I hate it I'll orphan rather than deleting it. I'm open to translations and podfics, but please contact me on tumblr first. Do not upload to other sites. Do not claim as your own. I did not consent to the upload of my fic to apps like Pocket Archive.

#

\- five years earlier

The day Clarke realizes it is time to go is an ongoing blur of the others that came before it. They are in the medbay, a patient under the scalpel between them. Abby’s eyes are focused and unblinking above her surgical mask. Clarke looks up at her and realizes that if she stays, the rest of her life will pass like this, in a fog of pain and quiet resentment.

The realization is a sudden and violent one, even as she recognizes that it has been building like a scream in the back of her throat for weeks. Maybe ever since the delinquents hit the ground. She forgets how to breathe for a moment, or forgets why it's important to. It doesn't matter. What does matter are the black spots that gather at the edges of her vision. The sudden guilt in her stomach, like the weight of curdling milk. When Abby asks for a drain for the blood pooling beneath the sterile blue of her surgical gloves, Clarke hesitates, forgets that it’s already in her hand, and Abby's voice snaps like an elastic band on the back of her wrist.

Clarke slips the drain into their patient's wound - the third time one of the hunting parties has been gored by a boar this year - and takes a deep and shuddering breath. Her forearms are streaked with blood up to the elbow, and sweat prickles on her skin underneath her stained surgical apron. The medbay smells like sick and metal. And suddenly her vision is clear and sharp for the first time in weeks. Or months.

"Focus or get out," Abby says. "Forceps."

"I'm here," Clarke says, taking the drain back and pressing the forceps into her mother's bloody hands. The medbay that has been their base of operations in the weeks since Arkadia's reconstruction suddenly seems like a new and foreign place. Clarke itches to look around with this new perspective and imprint her mother's lair onto her memory while the freedom and horror of her realization is still fresh in her mind, but she's survived here several months. She can finish one more surgery.

Abby's stitches are small and neat, the outcome of a life of practice. Clarke watches the skin knit together with a brand new feel of wonder. Bellamy stitches like that. She tore a sweater on a scrap of barbed wire. After they'd had an argument about whether or not the scrape of rust against her skin would kill her, Bellamy's wordless apology had been leaving her sweater neatly folded over the back of her chair. She'd barely been able to find where the rip had been. If their people keep getting injured at the rate they currently are, Clarke will soon get enough practice to get that good at stitching too.

“Did you sterilize those clamps like I asked?” Abby asks. For a few seconds she slips out of what Clarke privately thinks of as doctor mode, and into mother mode. Her voice is sharper in mother mode, and it’s enough to make Clarke’s hackles rise.

“Yep,” Clarke says, letting just enough displeasure seep into her voice that Abby knows Clarke’s not impressed.

“I don’t need your attitude right now,” Abby says. “Clamps and bandages.”

“We’re low on bandages,” Clarke says instead of pointing out that her mother started it.

“Do we have enough for this?” she snaps, and when Clarke nods, she makes an aggressive shooing motion with a bloodstained hand. “Then we’ll worry about restocking later.”

Clarke peels off her bloody gloves and starts unrolling a pitifully small roll of linen bandages. Their need to dress wounds has been at war with their need to keep spare clothing for the winter intact, and the Grounders either haven’t made much headway into recreating textiles in the past century, or are unwilling to share. Based on the fashion sense she’s seen, Clarke’s more willing to bet on the former. She threads a needle for Abby and sets on the nearest tray along with the bandages, just as footsteps echo against the floor outside their makeshift surgical tent. On the Ark they had a proper, sterile operating theatre. Down here they’ve had to make do with moonshine-doused tarps hanging from the ceiling to the floor, blocking out the outside view. The footsteps - two sets? three? - accompanied by the sound of dragging, make the hairs on the back of Clarke’s neck stand up. It unsettles her, being on one side of the tarps, unable to see what’s happening outside the tent.

“Abby? Clarke?”

Sergeant Miller’s voice. Clarke relaxes.

“In surgery!” she calls back. “Give us a moment.”

“We brought you a patient,” Miller’s dad says gruffly. “Can you come check on her?”

“Is it life-threatening?” Abby snaps.

“You don’t need me for this part,” Clarke tells her. “I’ll go.”

She draws aside the tarps and finds Sergeant Miller and Bellamy gently laying a body on the cot nearest to the door. Clarke sees familiar braids, and nearly stumbles in her hurry. Monroe stirs weakly as Bellamy steps aside.

“What happened?” Clarke demands.

“Shocklashed,” Bellamy says, in a tight voice that tells Clarke he’s furious, but not willing to show it while they have an audience. The news makes something in her burn too, something that wants to lash out. “She collapsed after thirty.”

They get Monroe’s shirt carefully folded up onto her shoulders. Her back is pockmarked with two dozen small, fresh burns, but to Clarke’s relief the damage isn’t severe. She rests her palm soothingly against Monroe’s forehead and Monroe’s eyes barely flutter open.

“What did you do?” Clarke asks softly.

“Didn’t do anything,” she slurs, pain and exhaustion dripping off of every word. “But they were gonna blame one of the younger kids.” And Clarke understands the way the Ark does not. When the delinquents came down they didn’t carry the Skybox with them. But with all the freedom and possibility on the Earth around them, the Ark still clings to brutal rules to keep their society from falling into chaos.

After, Clarke sits on a rock outside the medbay as the sky goes dark and purple. Bruised. Bellamy left to let Harper know Monroe is okay, and threatened to come back with dinner for Clarke. It’s been long enough since she watched his broad back swallowed up by the crowd of Arkers headed to the mess hall that Clarke thinks he must have gotten waylaid by some other disaster, but she’ll get up and find him soon enough. As soon as the tight, hot feeling in her throat goes away. She realizes she is holding back tears and wonders at it, distantly.

Footsteps from around the back of the medbay make her look up, but her spirits fall when she sees it’s only Abby.

“I can’t have you abandoning surgeries whenever one of the hundred gets a papercut,” Abby says.

“It wasn’t a papercut,” Clarke says through gritted teeth. “It was one of my kids, getting shocklashed for a minor crime she didn’t even commit.”

“This isn’t like your dropship,” Abby says. “This is a _society_. There are _rules_. What’s gotten into you? Are you not feeling well?”

Clarke finally loses the battle against the urge to cry, and tears well up like springwater, sudden and demanding. She turns away, not quite ashamed of her open grief, but not willing to have it on display, either.

“Clarke,” Abby says, suddenly soft as she kneels at Clarke’s feet and takes her limp wrists in hand. “Tell me what’s bothering you. What’s wrong?”

Even though Clarke cannot stand the sight of her some days, something painful is tearing inside her at the thought of saying goodbye. This is a betrayal, in a way, but it’s not the first between them. It won’t be the last.

"What is it?" Abby asks, frustration clipping her words short. "Fever?"

"No," Clarke says. Abby presses the back of her wrist to Clarke's forehead anyway. Clarke ducks away before she can take an accurate temperature.

"Daydreaming?"

"No," Clarke repeats, more irritated now. At least it slows the flow of tears. Abby wavers on the edge of doctor and mother, her efficiency at war with the emotion in her eyes.

"Are you pregnant?" she asks. Clarke squeezes her hands into tight fists.

"I haven't had any sexual partners in months," she says flatly. She may as well be reading the words out of a textbook, for all the intonation behind them.

"I know you're sleeping with Bellamy," Abby says, and the tightness at the corners of her eyes tells Clarke exactly how much her mother disapproves.

"Not like that," Clarke stresses. "I'm not pregnant." After Mount Weather, after she wandered the woods starving for a few months, she stopped menstruating. She was afraid, at first, that it was Finn's. That would have been nightmarish news to break to Raven. When Clarke's period returned she was already home in Arkadia, eating three square meals a day again, and it came without warning in the middle of the night. Bellamy had taken that in stride like he'd taken the nightmares and the knife on the nightstand. They'd washed the sheets in the lake under the moonlight, and he hadn't needed to ask about the tears of relief she cried that she was not carrying Finn's baby.

“Clarke - “

“We’re going to leave,” Clarke forces out, and Abby stills like a prey animal stills when it sees danger looming and hopes something else is the target.

“No.”

She and Bellamy have talked around the topic, so far, but Clarke knows he’ll be at her side the instant she starts walking out that gate. He, and all the other delinquents that have failed to assimilate back into the Ark’s population even after months.

“You know, mom,” Clarke says helplessly as Abby shakes her head in small, tight movements. “You have to have known.”

It’s not rational, but a part of Clarke, a small and fearful part, thinks that Abby seeing this coming would be an absolution of sorts. If it happens and no one is surprised, then the betrayal and the blame are lessened. If it happens and no one is surprised, then it was inevitable, and it’s not her fault for not trying hard enough to swallow down the bitterness of stepping back into line.

“The first month on the ground was awful,” Clarke says. “But when we weren’t dying… mom, it was like waking up from a dream. We were free for the first time in our lives, and we can’t go back into cages.”

“This isn’t a cage,” Abby says, desperately grabbing at her hands. “This is your home. Everything on this planet wants to kills us, Clarke, and we only stand a chance together.”

Arkadia is not her home. Not the wreckage of the halls she used to walk through in space, not the campfire where the delinquents convene nearly every night to talk about what’s going on in the rest of the camp, not even the cabin she shares with Bellamy because the silence of sleeping alone makes her scream into her fist. The dropship was her home, maybe more than anything else has ever been, and that’s burned out now, a hollow husk, a skeleton without any tissue for her to knit back together.

“You think we only stand a chance with the same people calling the shots. We’ve been here longer, we’ve seen more, and you still don’t take our advice, mom. It’s not going to change.”

“Where will you go?”

Clarke reels back. Bellamy asked her the same question at the gates of Arkadia, so many months ago. She didn’t have an answer then and she doesn’t now. She still dreams about the dropship, how it used to be, with the patchwork tents and the stink of ozone and the laughter coming from behind every tree. There’s nothing there for them now, and even if there was Trikru would take even less kindly to them moving in again than they did the first time.

“I don’t know,” Clarke says, echoing her past self. Abby shakes her head again, blinking furiously, and Clarke’s stomach clenches when she sees the shine of tears in her mother’s eyes.

“I won’t let you do this,” Abby says. “Your childishness will get you all killed.”

 _I don’t need your permission_ , Clarke thinks, as her mother strides away into the darkness.

\- five years later

Clarke wakes to a weight on her thigh and another over her waist. She blinks, her vision blurred by the late night. Her foot, caught in the slant of sunlight through the nearest window, is warmer than the rest of her - and the rest of her, trapped underneath Bellamy's arm slung over her waist and his leg hooked around her knee, is already too warm.

"Bell - " she murmurs, shoving lightly at his shoulder. He curls deeper into her in a subconscious protest, nosing his face into her hair. Clarke groans. "Bellamy, I'm too warm."

"'S perfect," he says roughly. The first wet touch of his mouth against her neck is unexpected, but not unusual. She shivers.

"Get off," Clarke complains. The light coming in through the shutters is bright. Too bright. She doesn't know how no one came knocking, but they've slept long enough and it's time to start the day. The faint ache of hunger in her stomach agrees.

And she’s _too fucking warm._

"Want you here," Bellamy says, sounding more lucid already. The arm he has tucked underneath her pillow bends at the elbow, pulling her head closer to him. He kisses her languidly as his other hand slips under the hem of her rucked-up shirt to cradle the sloping curve of her stomach protectively. Clarke acquiesces to the kiss for a few minutes, letting her worries melt away for a moment under the brush of his mouth. Bellamy is as good of a kisser now as he was nearly four years ago, probably better, considering the practice they've had since, and getting to kiss him unhurriedly is one of the best things about Earth, ranking somewhere at the top with sunlight and the drone of cicadas and the sensation of floating on her back in the ocean.

But they have a society to run, and solitude never lasts long in New Rome.

A fist pounds against their cabin's door, and Bellamy's mouth leaves hers with a soft sigh. He props himself up on one elbow and squints at the door.

"Wake up, assholes!"

 _Raven_. Clarke hides her smile in Bellamy's chest.

"Is someone dying?" he yells.

"Not yet," Raven shouts back. She seems to think better of this and quickly adds, "No, I'm just pissed."

Some of the tension that had started building instantly in Bellamy's body eases, and he rolls his eyes.

"Come on," Clarke says, shoving lightly at his shoulder. Bellamy rubs a gentle circle against her belly and kisses her one last time before letting her get up.

Clarke keeps the billowing shirt she's already wearing and grabs a pair of drawstring pants - one of Miller's first attempts at weaving his own textiles, rough and slightly asymmetrical. He's offered to replace them with a pair he made after he'd started learning from his early mistakes, but Clarke's stubbornly kept ahold of them so far, like she keeps the first lantern Raven ever forged above the fireplace, and Monroe's first attempt at glassblowing hung up in the window. She taps at the glass chimes with her finger as she walks by and smiles as the light scatters. It matters to her that their home is filled with flawed things. The delinquents have had several years to improve their crafts now, but their first rough, uncertain attempts remind her of the progress they've made, and the victories still to come.

Raven is nowhere to be seen when Clarke opens the door. She walks a few steps into the sunlight, blinking at the brilliant blue sky overhead, the activity down below as her people move throughout the village like ants on an anthill. Summer came late this year and delayed them planting their crops, cascading into the rest of the tasks to be completed before Earth gets cold and quiet again. A few cabins down, nestled in the shadow of an old and creaking oak tree, Jordan Green is very happily shoving fistfuls of earth into his mouth.

"Clarke! Over here!"

She doesn't immediately turn to look for Raven, still watching Jordan. Clarke takes a few steps toward her godson, thinking that someone should probably start scooping some of that soil out of his puffed-out cheeks, thinking that it would be good practice, thinking that if Bellamy walks out in time to see her with him his eyes are going to go dark with desire again -

Then she sees Harper rushing towards Jordan, her expression a now familiar mix of confusion and exasperation that all of the delinquents have worn at some time when confronted with the first child born in their community. Jordan has probably grown up more loved than any other child in a century, with forty-something delinquents and two dozen other residents watching his first steps like hawks, someone always ready to swoop in when he skinned a knee and started wailing for one of his papas. He's no longer the only child in New Rome - Bree had her daughter the morning of the first snowfall this year, and she's a clever little thing, always watching from her carrier, and Kath gave birth just two weeks ago, and there will be others, soon - but the magic of their being doesn't seem to have faded from the village yet.

They saw enough death, before peace finally settled, to know just how much it means to have new life breathed into them.

" _Clarke!"_

She wraps her arms around her waist, hugging herself, and drops her arms before anyone can see. At last, she turns and finds Raven around the back of their cabin, eating raspberries off the vine. Bellamy is elbow-deep in the bush with her, tiny bristles on the leaves clinging to his sleeves. The raspberry bush was a gift from the broadleaf clan, three summers ago, and not a single winter since has been able to tame the tendrils that grasp for purchase up the side of their cabin.

"Are they ripe yet?" Clarke asks.

Raven, who hasn't had the patience necessary to wait for fruit to ripen once in her life, and is not about to start now, says, "Who cares? They're good."

Once Clarke is within reach, Bellamy pops a raspberry into her mouth and Clarke feels the taste of it burst across her tongue, tart and fresh.

"They're all right," she concedes. She's always searching for something sweeter. "You don't seem like you're in a hurry now," she says to Raven. "Why'd you wake us up?"

"Lost connection with Arkadia overnight," Raven says, her voice deceptively casual. "You know how it is."

They do, yes.

One of Raven's biggest projects, the second summer after the delinquents' exodus, was setting up a secure communication line with Arkadia. They were still one people, in a way, even if they had fractured after Mount Weather and ALIE and everything else, and when relations with the Grounders frayed as borders and allegiances shifted, it was comforting to stay in touch with other Sky People. The AM radio frequency they had used to connect to the Ark from the dropship was frequently distorted by weather, and after everything that happened with Pike -

Clarke shoves those memories away. After, Raven had given herself the task of a more reliable solution. A chain of repeaters linking New Rome and Arkadia, receiving short-range radio waves and renewing them for the next link in the communication line.

The problem with the repeaters is that they’re targets, for both squirrels that seem incapable of discerning that the antennas are not edible, and for Grounders looking to cut the Sky People apart. When the connection goes down it's usually just squirrels chewing through the protective coating, or a fallen tree to be cleared, but they never know. And no one wants to send a small repair squad with minimal ammunition into the hands of an Azgedan attack again. Raven doesn't talk about it, but Clarke knows she was lucky to live.

So the connection failing now could be nothing to worry about... or an omen of danger. The faint trill of birdsong in the trees at the edge of the village makes that potential danger feel distant and surreal.

"What about the AM radio?" Bellamy asks. Raven rolls a raspberry between her fingers and it bursts under the pressure, staining her thumb.

"They're not responding on that, either," Raven says quietly.

"There could be a storm," Clarke says, just to have it out there, but none of them really believe that when they look up at the bright, cloudless sky above them. When it's raining over Arkadia, they usually get hints of it on the horizon from here. Today there's hardly even a whisper of wind to bring clouds in, and though the air is heavy with heat, it doesn't feel like it should before a thunderstorm builds.

"How does your back feel?" Bellamy asks. It's a running joke between them that Raven's injuries are the best weather forecast they've got.

"Doesn't feel like a storm," Raven says. "So how seriously do you want to treat this?"

"We'll go out today, if you're ready," Clarke decides.

"Clarke - " Bellamy says, his voice low with a warning. He breaks off, his jaw twitching, and looks to the sky for a moment. He exhales. "Raven, can you get your toolbox?"

"Already packed," Raven says, with a significant look between them. "If you're going to have a fight, keep it short."

Clarke grabs at her hand as she passes and squeezes. Raven squeezes back, a fleeting comfort, and does not turn to look at them as she departs.

"I don't want you on this trip," Bellamy says quietly. Clarke knew it was coming, but she's still surprised by the rush of anger that starts in her stomach and bubbles up to her throat. Some days she looks at Bellamy and she cannot understand how they ever stood on opposite sides of a war. Some days she looks at him and remembers exactly why they clashed so hard in those first few days on the ground. But even then, when it counted, Bellamy was there. When the ground fell out beneath her, his hand in hers was the only thing that kept her from plunging into a pit of spikes. In the end it always comes down to a tug of war between the things Clarke is willing to risk and the things Bellamy is desperate to protect.

So Clarke swallows down her anger and holds onto the kernel of truth that tells her Bellamy is being uncooperative _because_ he loves her. She holds up her hand.

"Do you remember what we promised, when we got these?" she asks, and points to the band of dark blue ink tattooed at the base of her ring finger. Bellamy's mouth presses into a thin line, and Clarke knows she is going to win this battle.

"Yes," he says grudgingly. "But it's not just us anymore - "

She surges forward and kisses him.

"All the more reason for me to come along and watch your back," Clarke whispers after they've parted, because of course Bellamy is going to go.

He closes his eyes.

"Immovable object," he mutters.

Clarke pats his chest. "Unstoppable force," she replies fondly.

\- five years earlier

Two days after Clarke's mother assigns her a bodyguard to make sure she doesn't go wandering off, Miller is brought to the medbay, convulsing every few minutes with a fresh wave of nausea. He rules out food poisoning himself - tells them he forgot that those yellow berries by the edge of camp trigger vomiting and ate some during patrol because he was bored. There's nothing much for them to do but keep a bucket by his bed and make him comfortable until it eases, so Abby leaves Clarke to it. When his head isn't in the bucket, Miller's eyes track everything in the medbay, watching who comes in, where Clarke puts supplies.

The medbay is the one of two places her rotating cast of bodyguards give her some space, since patient confidentiality is apparently still a thing her mother respects. The other place is Bellamy's cabin, where she goes to sleep, but Bellamy is being watched too.

That means that leaning over Miller to lay a cool cloth on his forehead as he rests, chest heaving with exertion, is one of the few opportunities the past few days she's had for an honest conversation.

"We both know you were telling some kid to watch out for those berries last week," Clarke says to him in a soft whisper that won't carry. She shifts to block the view of his face from her bored bodyguard just in time to hide Miller's weak grin.

"Had to make it believable," he says.

"Bellamy got you a message?" Clarke asks.

"Yeah. We're spreading the news around, and we've been careful, promise. Most of us are ready. We just need a sign. When do we go?"

"Soon," she says.

"All right," Miller says. He has to stop talking for a moment and breathe in and out through his nose, clearly holding back nausea, but he holds Clarke's hand tightly, telling her not to go yet. When he's able to speak again, he asks, "What do you need, Griffin? They're not watching me. I'll grab anything you want."

Clarke touches her face to buy time. The question scares and irritates her. The problem is that she doesn't know what she'll need, what they'll encounter out there. Why does everyone think she can predict the dozens upon dozens of ways a delinquent could break a bone or wander into an apex predator?

"Splints, arm and leg. Sterile solution. Iodine tablets - take half the stock, Arkadia has water filtration set up, who knows how long it'll take us. Take a little bit of antibiotics, a lot of that dried seaweed. It'll rot as soon as it's damp again, so see if you can borrow jars from Gina.” Clarke tells Miller. “And I'll need a set of surgical tools, scalpels and forceps and the like - "

"I have no idea what those are," Miller interrupts.

"I'll... I'll point them out," Clarke says, scrambling to think of everything else she's forgotten. She knows that's not a complete list, knows that whatever she prepares for won't happen and whatever happens will be something she did anticipate properly. "Leave the bandages," she says. "We'll need a lot of that spare clothing for the winter, we'll use those as we have to - "

"Already on it, Griffin," Miller says with a grin. "You can count on us." Then he grimaces and reaches for the bucket.

"I know, and I'm glad," Clarke whispers, rubbing his back as he retches. Once he's finished and laid back to rest again, Clarke goes to rearrange the supplies on the shelves across from him. Her elbow catches the edge of a tray as she's reaching for something at the top of the cabinet, and metal tools clatter against the floor. The clamour brings Abby out of the back room.

"Clarke!" she snaps. "Those need to be disinfected again."

"I know, I know," Clarke says. She bends down and starts piling them back into their wrap. She puts them in the sink and gives Miller a meaningful look. He gives her a discreet thumbs up, and that's that.

That night she walks fast to Bellamy's cabin, forcing her latest bodyguard to jog to keep up. She gives them a pointed good night and slams the door behind her.

Bellamy is already in bed, reading by candlelight.

"Do you want to sleep?" he asks her, folding the book in his lap as she approaches. "I can blow the candle out."

"No, I'm in the mood to draw," Clarke says. Bellamy looks studiously up at the ceiling as she strips her pants off and slides into bed next to him with her sketchbook and a pencil. She uses the back of a page that's already littered with mishappen sketches from a bad day, and writes, in very small text in the corner: _You got the word out?_ and tilts the sketchbook towards him. He nods.

 _When do we leave?_ she writes just underneath that.

He takes the pencil carefully, without touching her skin - or maybe she's just reading into things - and writes in his own loopy writing: _Whenever we want_. It makes her shiver. Not so long ago she hated when he said things like that. Hated the holes he poked into the order she wanted to instill. It's still difficult to believe, sometimes, how she's changed. She couldn't understand, before, that he wanted to build something new more than he wanted to destroy.

Clarke understands perfectly now.

She reclaims her pencil and writes, with no small amount of hesitation: _do you think they'll try to kill us?_

He writes: _I'll pull some strings with the guard schedule, lower the chances._ That's not a no, but a lie wouldn't reassure her at this point, anyway.

 _Two days,_ she writes. _Sunrise._ She pauses with the tip of the pencil resting against the paper. He's watching her instead of the paper, and his eyes are dark and intense, more so than usual. In the candlelight he is frighteningly beautiful. She ducks her head under the weight of that gaze. _Are you afraid?_

This time, when he takes the pencil from her, their hands do brush, and Clarke resents the way it makes her pay attention to her breathing. They don't have time for this, now, for her heart to be silly, for the rest of her body to foolishly follow suit. The delinquents that remain are putting their lives in her hands, and they need her full attention. She swallows hard and watches Bellamy scrawl.

 _I've been afraid since we landed_ , he writes. _Are you?_

It's an unbelievably vulnerable confession, and Clarke immediately wants to burn the evidence to stop anyone else from ever seeing even a glimpse. On Earth, if she's not careful, his heart is going to get him killed. And Clarke... Clarke does not want to imagine it without him.

 _Less afraid if you're with me,_ she writes, tilting the page for his benefit. But she doesn't pass him the pencil. Doesn't want to see his response. She tears the part of the paper they've written on, balls it up, and throws it into the fire smoldering at the end of the bed.

"Your drawing didn't go well?" Bellamy asks evenly. They're not actually sure how closely Abby's assigned guard listens, but the cabins don't have great soundproofing. So they go through the motions.

"Not tonight," she says, putting the sketchbook away, out of his reach. She wriggles down under the blankets and he makes a quiet hiss as her cold feet brush his. "I'm ready to sleep."

He leans over her to blow out the candle and she feels his warmth and weight against her side. She holds her breath, and it aches when the light flickers out and he pulls away to his side of the mattress. In the darkness, for a few minutes, she imagines pulling him back on top of her. How comforting it would feel, to be pressed down, embraced. Tentatively, she traces the surface of the bed with one hand, and finds his fingers splayed, the palm up. He squeezes back when she holds on, so they fall asleep like that, and Clarke dreams about an endless parade of delinquents falling down the cliff where Charlotte jumped.

\- five years later

Chickens scatter to the sides of a well-worn path as Clarke approaches the kitchens. The flock quickly closes the gap behind her, some of the braver chickens right on her heels as she reaches the doorstep. They know they're not allowed to come in but they stop at the threshold and cluck hopefully at her in case she can be tempted to throw them some leftovers. 

She's not entirely sure how the chickens came to love Murphy so much. Their coop is technically on the other side of camp, near the three graves she never goes near, but every morning when they're let out the chickens make a beeline for the grassy area by the kitchens, where they spend the rest of the day until Murphy shoos them home at nightfall. Murphy, to his credit, makes a valiant effort of pretending they're a nuisance, but Clarke has seen him sitting out front when he needs a break, speaking softly to the hens as they peck at his hands and pockets for snacks. Whenever there's a sickness passing through the camp and he has to butcher one of them for broth, everyone else knows to give him space. 

"If Henrietta follows you in, give her a kick," Murphy hollers from the back of the kitchen as Clarke walks in. The sounds of soft cooing and feathers ruffling fades to the background.

"I have no idea which one is Henrietta," Clarke admits. "And I know better than to kick your best friend."

"Does my girlfriend not count?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. 

"Only on the days she likes you," Clarke jokes. "What have you got for us?"

"A goddamn travesty," Murphy says, plopping several packs of cloth-wrapped rations on his counter. Clarke traces the faint outline of a hammer-shaped dent in the metal. He made such a fuss about wood being an unsanitary surface that Raven donated one of her stringently-hoarded pieces of scrap metal just to shut him up. But her sacrifice has paid off over the years. Emori jokes that if word of Murphy's cooking ever gets out to the surrounding Grounder villages that he'll be kidnapped and carried off. Privately, Clarke agrees.

"I'm sure it'll be delicious," Clarke says.

"Raven said it's probably just a day trip, so you have smoked ham, some potatoes that are already seasoned and wrapped in tin foil, you just have to make a fire and drop them in, even you can manage that without burning dinner - "

"Thanks."

" - and a few pounds of cherry tomatoes to keep away the scurvy. You didn't exactly give me a lot of time to prepare - "

"This is _fine_ ," Clarke insists, trying to pile all the packages in her arms at once.

"This is a disgrace," Murphy continues, apparently not to be deterred. "It's the worst meal I've prepared in at least three years. Wait, don't forget to take salt - "

"It's one day, Murphy, we don't need spices. What about the time we all got food poisoning when you tried to make clam chowder?" 

"That's why I said three years."

Clarke pauses in the middle of her retreat with a package tucked underneath her chin. 

"That was three years ago already?" she asks, a little stunned. Murphy crosses his arms and looks at her expectantly. "Huh. Time flies." 

A few seconds of sudden, anxious clucking are all the warning they get before a chicken flaps through the kitchen's open door in a frenzy. Emori skids to a stop just behind her and knocks several pots and pans off their hooks. Metal clatters against the clay floor and the disoriented chicken runs around in circles. Emori murmurs a quick apology to the chicken as she picks her up and tosses her back outside. 

"Leave my chickens alone," Murphy grouses at her. 

"Yeah, yeah, sorry," Emori says, dusting off her hands. Her eyes, bright with excitement, are fixed upon Clarke. 

"Raven says this would be a really good opportunity to teach me about the radio relay," she says, her words tumbling out in a rush. "Please, can I come?"

Clarke does a mental tally. She's going, and Raven, and Bellamy, and he'll probably want Miller, and Raven might have invited Monty as well - 

"If you fit in the rover and you're ready to go in five," Clarke says. 

_In five_ is a bit of a pointless measurement in a society that doesn't have clocks, but Emori takes it to mean she better get running. She kisses Clarke on the cheek and Murphy on the mouth with a loud, purposeful squelch, and dances just out of reach of the towel he snaps at her butt. 

"Get out of my kitchen, both of you," Murphy grumbles, and Clarke follows Emori out with a smile.

They find Raven stretched out on the hood of the rover, her eyes closed and her face turned up towards the sun.

"Where's everyone else?" Clarke asks.

"Downstairs, getting ammo," Raven says. "They'll be a while."

'Downstairs' means the underground bunker beneath their village on the surface, their stronghold against winter and attack. Clarke tried to get people to just call it the bunker, but the nickname spread too quickly.

She and Emori scramble up on the rover's hood on either side of Raven and sit back against warm metal. A bee lost on its way back from the orchard buzzes lazily past, and Emori raises her hand to tempt it into landing on her. She doesn't wear any wraps inside the camp, but when they're headed deeper into clan territory like they are now, she has a few different gloves that Bellamy stitched for her. The bee makes a half-hearted pass over her thumb and moves on in search of something more edible.

Emori and Raven start idly throwing around theories about what's happened to the lost connection and Clarke tries to doze. The late morning lingers with her, making her eyelids heavy, and the warmth of summer doesn't help.

"Clahk! Clahk!"

Clarke opens her eyes and turns towards the shrill voice calling her name. Harper walks towards the rover, Jordan safe in her arms where he can't eat any dirt. He points insistently at Clarke with one soft, chubby hand. The other is fisted in the ends of Harper's hair. Clarke slips off the hood and meets them halfway, her mouth twisting upwards into an unstoppable smile. The first thing anyone notices about Jordan is that he has his mother's famous smile. (The second thing they notice is how fast he can run away for a kid who only learned how to walk a few weeks ago.)

"Clahk!"

"You wanna say bye to your godmom, Jordan? Say bye to Clarke," Harper says encouragingly.

"Ba Clahk!" 

"Bye, kiddo," Clarke says, poking his upturned nose. He laughs and hides his face against Harper's shoulder. 

"I miss field trips," Harper says wistfully, eyeing the rover. "We should do something when you get back. Maybe get in touch with Luna's clan."

"That's a good idea," Clarke says, straightening up. Harper's gaze drifts past her shoulder and her smile wavers slightly. Clarke turns to look and sees Miller and Monty climbing up the stairs leading down into the bunker, a heavy crate of ammunition swinging between them.

"Take care of my boys," Harper says fiercely.

"I will."

"And stay safe. No risks I wouldn't take," Harper says.

" _Please,"_ Clarke says. "You were skinning deer in the middle of the woods while seven months pregnant. You're not exactly leaving me a high bar."

Raven honks impatiently.

"I said what I said!" Harper yells out after Clarke as she returns to the rover. Bellamy pauses to look at her with one foot in the passenger seat.

"What did she say?"

"To do what I want and eat all your food," Clarke snarks, and kisses the corner of his mouth and climbs into the back of the rover before he can snark back.

There's not much room in the back, with Miller, Monty, and Emori all squeezed in already, the ammunition crate and a pile of guns on top of it, Clarke's first aid kit and Raven's toolbox. Emori is already pawing through Murphy's carefully prepared rations.

"Did someone tell Murphy we're only going to be gone for one day?" she asks, smelling one of the packages to identify it. 

"A lot can happen in a day," Clarke murmurs, and she catches the hint of Bellamy's cheek curving upright before he turns his head to face forward.

"Can you put Jasper on?" Monty asks, as Raven starts the engine.

"We won't be in range for long," Raven points out, but Bellamy is already jabbing at the radio.

"So, after the constructive feedback I got last week, I tried approaching this from a different angle," Jasper says. His radio voice is different from his other one, the one he uses face-to-face. It's much slower, every word sounding thoughtful, like he's rolling it around in his mind before he puts it on air. Clarke likes it. Of course, Jasper still doesn't talk to her, so the open conversations he has on the radio is as intimate as they get. When she closes her eyes, she can pretend they're friends again. "It's a little smaller than a guitar, but if this works we can probably scale it up, and Raven helped me string it. It doesn't sound half bad! Don't turn off your radios just yet, here, I'll give it a try."

A few uncertain strums reverberate over the air. Raven passes the last of the cabins and starts accelerating. The three gravestones that sit separate from the others flash past Clarke's view in seconds and then they're out into what Monty still affectionately calls the garden, even though it spans acres now.

"I'm not sure what to call it. It's too lumpy to be a banjo, but I'm not good enough at woodcarving yet to call it a ukelele. I'm accepting suggestions. Bankelele? Ukelejo?"

Jasper keeps plucking haphazardly at the strings as he speaks, and it settles into something like a melody, the best he's tried to recreate for them so far. A shiver creeps down Clarke's spine as Jasper starts humming gently along. It feels a little bit like he is making history, or following along in its footsteps, trying to bring back something the apocalypse lost. Maya's iPod finally died last year, and the weeks that followed, when Jasper didn't sit down in front of his broadcasting station, were the quietest their camp had ever been. But by the time Maya's iPod had played its last song, everyone in the camp knew almost all of them by heart. Jasper starts singing, a little hesitant, a little breathless, and no one in the rover makes a sound. 

Clarke leans her head back against her seat and watches fields of lush green fall away. There go the tomatoes, still mostly yellow, and the grapes Monty has been making wine from, and the corn they've been struggling to coax out of the ground - 

Raven drops the rover into a lower gear as they enter the forest. The trees at its edge are still fairly sparse, kept in check by wintery treks in search of firewood, and the underbrush not so thick. Dappled sunlight falls through the canopy and flashes across Clarke's eyes, making every leaf it touches on its way down glow a bright green. The sound of Jasper's strumming gets fainter and grainier, until at last the rover crests a hill and plunges into deeper forest, and the radio slips into eerie static. Bellamy lets it play for a moment until it becomes clear it's not going to come back into focus, and turns it off. 

\- five years earlier

On their last night in Arkadia Clarke sits in the mess hall with Harper and Raven and feels the guilt build up in her like bile. She knows she should eat. The first few days of their exodus will be hard walking, and they'll have to avoid hunting while on another clan's territory or risk the consequences of poaching. It may be a while before they have good, filling food like this. But Clarke can barely stomach it. Raven and Harper seem to guess what is going on, because they sit with her well after their plates are clean and her food is going cold. Clarke pushes it around with a fork that's missing a tine and takes small bites through the nausea.

The problem is that action is easier to blame than inaction. It's like the lever in Mount Weather all over again. Pulling the lever was a choice, but not pulling it was a choice also. Likewise, leaving Arkadia and taking dozens of healthy, strong young bodies with her is a choice, and one that might result in their deaths or Arkadia's.

But staying here is a choice too, a more insidious one.

“Uh oh,” Harper murmurs. Clarke pulls her attention away from her spiraling thoughts like a boot pulled out of sinking mud. She can still feel it dragging her down even as she looks up and follows Harper’s gaze. Her heart falls when she sees Jasper clearly heading straight for them, shoving unoccupied chairs out of his way with careless abandon. Anger lurks under his skin and in his reddened eyes, the only constant companion he has left now. People avert their gaze as he passes, and Clarke hates them for it the same way she hates herself on the days she can’t look at him. Today she sits back in her chair, her spine as straight as an arrow, and lets him come, never lowering her gaze.

Jasper slams his hands down on the table, rattling their cutlery. His knuckles are bruised and scabbed. Two day old injuries, if she had to guess, and it hurts that she didn’t see him come to the medbay to have those checked out.

“You’re gonna get them all killed,” Jasper says.

Well. It’s only natural that word got to him, eventually. He’s still a delinquent. He’s still one of them, even when he hates everyone who survived, and Clarke and Bellamy and Monty most of all.

“Jasper - “ Harper starts to say, and the furious look in his eyes as he turns on her makes her voice die in her throat.

“Have you told anyone yet?” Clarke says. She keeps looking into Jasper’s eyes but in her mind she is making a map of the room, trying to sketch in exactly who else was sitting where. How close are the others? Are they her mother’s people? How much damage control will this take?

“I should,” Jasper says. His eyes are fever-bright. The smell of alcohol is overpowering. He’s been drinking the strong stuff, the stuff they use in the medbay too, and the association does not make her feel better. “I should tell them all about your plan. They’ll stop you. Bet they lock you up. Then everyone will be safe from you. _Murderer._ ”

“Maybe if _you_ were on that table, being drilled into - “ Raven starts to say, and Harper gets up in one quick, fluid motion, her chair falling back behind her. She walks away without another word, her fists clenched very tightly at her sides. Clarke reaches out and lays two fingers on Raven’s arm. She can’t let Jasper give them away. The plan to run away has gathered too much momentum to dissipate gracefully now. If Jasper tells Abby or anyone else close to the Council, every delinquent who has stashed away clothing and ammo and supplies underneath their floorboards in preparation for the trip will be found and punished. Clarke will not tolerate one more person limping into her medbay with shocklash burns on their back. They wouldn’t stop at thirty lashes for theft at this level.

A cruel solution blooms in her mind. Clarke digs her nails into her palm and breathes through the sting, forcing herself not to show disgust on her face.

“Walk with me, Jasper,” she says, and to her surprise her voice sounds nearly even.

“Why would I do that?” he sneers.

“Because I’ll buy you a drink,” Clarke says. She squeezes Raven’s arm to let her know she’ll be all right, and stands up. She heads for the bar with her head held high, listening for Jasper’s footsteps behind her. Part of her hopes he won’t follow, but for all the vitriol he throws at her, deep down, he still kind of trusts her not to hurt him.

 _I’m sorry,_ she thinks privately.

Gina watches them approach with apprehension in her eyes. She deliberately plucks an abandoned, half-full glass off the bar counter and out of reach.

“Hi Gina,” Clarke says, leaning heavily against the bar and massaging the ache that’s starting to build up in her temples. “Two drinks, please. Something strong.”

“He’s already had four tonight,” Gina says. She doesn’t need to finish the sentence for Clarke to know what she’s thinking. Jasper was thin even on the Ark, even in their dropship days, but he’s lost more weight since Mount Weather, and the lost mass hasn’t improved his alcohol tolerance. Some days the hollows of his cheeks look like the skulls that were waiting on their doorstep the morning after the ring of fire. It’s a miracle - or a curse - he can still walk after four drinks.

“I’m right here,” Jasper says.

“Two drinks,” Clarke says firmly. Gina raises her chin and Clarke silently begs her not to argue. Maybe there’s a warning in her eyes. Maybe Gina knows. She swallows hard and flips two glasses up on the counter in front of Clarke. Gina hesitates before filling them, her eyes darting to Clarke for one last affirmation. The set of her mouth is hard and pained as clear fluid swirls into the glasses.

Clarke picks up one of the glasses, murmurs a thank you, and lets Jasper take the second. He downs half of it in one swig and groans at the burn. Clarke can smell it from here. It’s a strong pour.

Gina knows, then.

“Come on,” Clarke says, and Jasper, lulled by the gift of easy alcohol when everyone else makes it difficult for him, follows with minimal complaint. Outside it is so dark that Clarke can’t see anything beyond Arkadia’s electrified fence. There’s no differentiation where the horizon of distant trees meets the sky. She tilts her head back and goes dizzy with the expanse of stars scattered overhead.

“Do you realize you’re a killer, or do you just not care?” Jasper asks.

 _I care,_ Clarke screams inside her own head. _I care too much. And I do it anyway._

“I know,” she says instead. She starts walking. “I don’t want to be.”

“I guess I kind of get it,” Jasper says, stumbling to keep up. “The safest place to be on the planet is next to you. If I wasn’t - well, _me_ , and I heard you wanted to leave Arkadia, I wouldn’t stay here either. Who knows who you’re willing to kill to get out of here, right? That’s the Clarke Griffin experience. Murder everyone on your way out. You’re only safe if she thinks you’re on her side.”

“No one’s going to die if I can help it,” Clarke says. “Telling Abby will put _more_ people in danger.”

Jasper starts laughing so hard they have to stop walking for a moment while he doubles over. Clarke breathes through the burn at the back of the throat and eyes and stands guard while Jasper’s laughs melt into sobs. There are people in this part of Arkadia, but not many at this time of night. This sector is mostly residental cabins, and there’s little reason to linger on the paths between cabins when you could be inside, or on your way to a different part of camp. Clarke wonders when Jasper will realize where she’s leading him.

“You can have my drink too,” she says quietly, and hopes she hasn’t misjudged how drunk he is.

“Fucking generous,” Jasper slurs, and reaches for her glass.

“Stand up, first,” Clarke says, darting just out of reach. Jasper curses at her and staggers upright. He still spills half the drink on his chin when she gives it to him, but that’s probably for the best. She tries to take the glass back when he’s done but Jasper whips it at one of the nearby cabins instead. He misses and it goes sailing into the bushes. Glass cracks and tinkles. “Okay,” Clarke says, blinking back tears. “Okay, let’s get you home.”

Jasper puts up surprisingly little fight when she pulls one of his arms over his shoulders and they stagger onwards together. He was her height, or just about, when they landed on Earth. He’s taller now, and her support is forcing him to hunch over.

“This is your cabin, right?” Clarke asks. Jasper makes a sound in response that could be agreement or disagreement equally. She shakes her head and shoves her shoulder against the door anyway, pulling them in. Inside the air is stale and acrid. Her foot stumbles on clothing left haphazardly on the floor. Yeah. It’s his cabin. “Where’s the bed?” Clarke asks, and Jasper answers by collapsing onto it.

She props the door open to let some moonlight in and her eyes adjust to the darkness after a moment. She rolls Jasper onto his side - it’s shocking how difficult his body is to move when he’s so thin now - pulls his knee up, makes sure his face is clear. He’s snoring very gently by the time Clarke sinks to the floor, unable to hold back her tears any longer. Her hands shake as she makes herself small, knees drawn up to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers to him, and he is too far gone to hear her.

He is too far gone by design. _Her_ design.

In the morning Jasper will wake up, and he will wake alone, with his head pounding, hours after they’ve left. What does it say about Clarke, that however much it hurt to pull a lever and kill over three hundred people, it hurts even more to poison her friend? Maya was her friend, too, or she could have been if they’d had more time. But this still feels different.

She sits on his floor for what feels like a very long time, crying until her eyelids feel like sandpaper. Jasper’s hand is limp in hers. She checks again to make sure his neck is comfortable and there’s no chance of him suffocating if he vomits in his sleep, and then she starts shaking again. Her head hurts too much to cry but her lungs still heave painfully, her breath coming in short and painful gasps. _I’m sorry,_ she tells Jasper one last time, and then she picks her awful heartless body up off the ground and stumbles home.

Bellamy holds her, even when she pushes against his chest, certain that she’s staining his skin, that he shouldn’t be touching her so gently. Her breathing doesn’t level out for hours. By the time she’s calmed enough to tell him what she’s done, the cracks in their cabins are starting to spill pale gray light. Bellamy caresses her hair until the knock comes on the door. Harper. She stays only long enough to make sure they’re awake before moving on to the next cabin, but her gaze lingers for just a second on Clarke’s swollen face.

“This can’t be the goodbye we leave him,” Bellamy says, and Clarke knows he’s right, so she rips a page out of her sketchpad and tries to write a letter, knowing there’s a painfully high chance he’ll just throw it into a fire without reading it. She hasn’t slept enough to make sense of her ruthlessness, and she doesn’t reread the letter when she’s done. There’s not enough time for second thoughts. She’ll just have to hope that one day, he’s willing to follow. He doesn’t have to forgive her. She doesn’t expect him to. She just wants him to be okay.

“I’ll meet you at the gate,” Clarke whispers to Bellamy.

Jasper is exactly how she left him, on his side with his arm stretched above his head and his knee bent. He is sleeping so deeply that Clarke presses her fingertips to his jaw, terrified for a moment until she sees his chest expand. Even after she's determined he's breathing, she keeps her fingers there for a few minutes, trying to burn the rhythm of his heart into her memory. She tries to match herself to it, breathing slower to ease her racing heartbeat, but it doesn't work. So she drops her hand and tucks the letter under his arm.

"I'm sorry," she tells him again. It seems like the only way she can apologize without being spat at that she doesn't mean it is to leave it unheard. The problem is that she does mean it, and she still would pull the lever again. That conflict doesn't seem to make sense to anyone else, except maybe Bellamy and Monty, who haven't been able to speak of it in such plain terms. 

Jasper was the first life Clarke ever saved, and it seems like she's the only one who remembers. There were others, up in the Ark, at her mother's side, but she was only following orders. Jasper was the first that was _hers_. She would do terrible things for his life. She would sacrifice three hundred lives. She would poison him to save him the guilt of getting his friends captured.

But you can't say those sorts of things out loud. You can't. It frightens people to see the lengths you’d go to for them.

Clarke leaves.

Miller is the first to find her. He heaves a bag off his shoulder and passes it to her before either of them can get out a hello.

"How's it look?" he asks. Clarke unzips it and finds a veritable cornucopia of medication and supplies, everything thrown together, metal clinking against glass. He put the seaweed in jars, like she asked. On top of everything, there's a handgun. 

"It's perfect," Clarke says, zipping it back up. She declines to mention or pull out the handgun. It'll be useful later, but she doesn't think she has it in her to shoot someone this morning. Maybe in the afternoon. 

At Miller's heels are two boys she doesn't recognize. Her eyes flicker towards Miller, a question. 

"They can come, right? They're not friends of the current guard either - "

"They can come," Clarke says. She knows they've attracted more than just the delinquents. She spares a moment to wonder if they'll be trouble later, if they won't follow her with the same reverence as the others she's kept alive on a more personal level, if they'll fight her on every issue for being the Ark's princess, like the early days of the dropship. It might be better to send them over to Bellamy. Speaking of... "Where's Bellamy?"

"Helping Raven load the rover. She just thought of another twenty things she wants to bring. But he won't let them be late."

 _I know_ , Clarke thinks, a rush of affection and worry warming her chest. They're all safer together. Bellamy knows this. He won't let the plan fall apart.

At the gate there are already more people than Clarke was expecting. More than their forty-something survivors. They lurk in the overhang of twisted metal, in the uninhabitable portions of the crashed Ark, in the shadows along buildings, up in the towers where the guards are supposed to watch for danger from the outside. 

Bellamy came through with the guard schedule. Clarke sees more than a few jackets with the Ark's emblem weaving through the credits, guns pointed at the ground instead of the delinquents. (Can she still call them all her delinquents, when the movement seems to have grown far beyond them?) There are a few guards on the ground, struggling against the ties that bind their hands behind them, but they're far out numbered by the supporters Bellamy quietly put on rotation. Sergeant Miller is one of them, and maybe it should shock Clarke when he turns towards her as she approaches and nods his head, but maybe it shouldn't. He does seem to have taken this second chance with his son with fervor. 

"Let me go," a woman on the ground snarls. Underneath the blood smeared over her mouth is a familiar face. Hannah Green, Clarke thinks, with a terrible and sinking feeling in her stomach. Her bloody nose tells Clarke she didn't let herself be taken down easily. Clarke kneels in front of her and squints at the nose, but it's not broken, just a little aggravated. Monty stands a little apart, his face ashen in the early dawn. 

"This won't take long," Clarke promises. "I'm sorry you got caught in the middle."

"I don't need your apology, Grounder puppet," Hannah says, and spits. "They'll kill you first, and march on us next, and it'll be your fault we die if everyone who could have protected us is still tied up."

Distantly, an engine revs, and a single shout carries on the wind.

"You won't be tied for long," Clarke says flatly. "Your reinforcements are coming." She calls out, "Open the gate!" and to the Millers, she says, "Get her out of the way."

The delinquents - and the dissenters who have joined them - part like a wave to make a clear path down the middle. The gates creak on their hinges, and freedom is at first a thin line between them and then a widening gap large enough for the rover. 

The rover skids on the dirt and gravel road as it turns the corner and speeds towards them. It slows only momentarily for Bellamy to leap out of the driver's seat and clap a heavy hand on Miller's shoulder. The transition is so smooth Clarke wonders if they agreed upon it ahead of time, or if Miller and Bellamy trust each other so absolutely that they don't need to communicate.

"Give me your bag," Miller says to Clarke, grabbing the medical supplies off her shoulder and throwing it through the open door. The weight taken off her shoulder is a welcome relief - she didn't realize how painfully the strap was digging into her neck - but Miller climbs in after it and slams the door shut before Clarke can change her mind about the handgun that was inside. Raven salutes her from the passenger seat. She's grinning. 

"Go!" Bellamy roars at the waiting crowd, and they move like a tsunami in the rover's wake, dozens and dozens of bodies flooding out of the shadows and down the guard towers and slipping through the open gates like water through a cracked dam. It makes Clarke dizzy to see them united by such purpose. All these people, trusting in her and Bellamy to build something better than Arkadia. 

The pressure suddenly feels more real, just as it's too late to take back. Arkadia is waking up just as dawn lightens the sky, and loyalists come running from all directions, some buckling on armour as they run, others throwing caution to the wind. Bellamy brushes against her shoulder and clicks the safety off his rifle.

"We should go," he says in a low, dangerous voice that tells Clarke that Sky People or not, if anyone tries to hurt them, he's going to shoot.

"Not yet," Clarke says. The first of the runaways have just reached the treeline. The stragglers need more time. There's no cover between here and the trees, partially because Arkadia had to clear a lot of forest to build their cabins, and partially because they wanted any enemy reaching - or fleeing - their gates to be completely exposed. They could still be mowed down. Clarke sets her shoulders back and turns to say goodbye to Arkadia.

Abby is at the forefront, wearing a pajama blouse that is too thin for the chill air, her hair loose and streaming behind her instead of half-tied up as usual. Her face is a mask of cold fury, visible even from a distance. She's holding a handgun.

"Clarke," Bellamy says roughly. They're the last ones left. Everyone else who is leaving this morning is running free. 

Abby runs the last stretch between them. Clarke is not entirely surprised when her mother raises the handgun and she finds herself staring down the barrel. 

"Call it off," Abby says desperately. 

"I can't," Clarke says. It’s not a practical order unless they give her a megaphone and parade her back and forth at the treeline, but even then - "I won't."

"You don't know what you doing. Behaving like a child - "

"I tried to tell you this isn't the Ark anymore," Clarke says. 

Abby clicks the safety off and Bellamy moves in one fluid motion, stepping around Clarke and raising his rifle, his head hunched to meet the sights he won't need at this distance - 

"No!" Clarke cries out as Abby's aim swings to the side. She throws herself in front of Bellamy, arms outstretched and pushing his rifle down, pushing him behind her. She takes a step back, forcing him to yield, and another, edging them towards the open gate. There are loyalists climbing the towers, rushing for the winches, but they won't need a very wide gap. 

"Get out of the way, Clarke," Abby says. Clarke can feel Bellamy's chest pressed against her back, breathing quickly, shallowly. His hand finds and squeezes her hip, and they both know he's only allowing her to be his shield because this gamble is their best chance to live. 

"Are you going to shoot me if I don't?" Clarke dares. "I mean, you've already murdered one family member, so you've had practice. What's one more?"

The gun wavers. 

"Are you gonna shoot me, mom?" 

Abby's face crumples and a second later she folds in on herself, dropping the gun to the ground and falling to her knees, her head bowed. 

Clarke takes Bellamy's arm and they run through the gate's closing gap. He pushes and pulls her to the side, zig-zaging in case Arkadia changes its mind. She half expects a bullet to the back the whole while and doesn't let go of Bellamy even if they could run faster separated. She doesn't want to run faster. If he goes down, she needs to know the second it happens. Sunrise breaks over the horizon just as they reach the treeline and Clarke pauses a second to look at it. Late nights in medbay means she doesn't see sunrises as often as she'd like to, but this one is redder than she remembers them being. The sun looks like a bloody yolk, spilling across eggshell-pale clouds. The forest is humming with delinquents waiting for her signal.

She starts walking. Bellamy keeps pace, and the others follow, wordlessly, like they are all part of one body.

\- five years later

Somehow, Clarke manages to fall asleep in the back of the rover. She wakes up to the sound of magazines being loaded, and Miller's elbow in her ribcage. Clarke sits up with a wince, her hand cradling her stomach for a second before she's reaching for her own gun.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

"Almost there," Raven says.

The rover slows to a crawl and Bellamy leaps out of the passenger seat before Raven has even cut the engine. He traces a perimeter around the side of the rover with his gun held up to his eyeline and is apparently satisfied. Miller clambers out of the back of the rover, one arm held out to signal the others to stay down, and does the same.

"Clear!" Bellamy calls out, as Clarke ignores Miller's outstretched arm and slips out, clutching her gun. "Miller?"

"Clear on this side, too."

"All right," Bellamy says as they all gather behind the rover. "Raven, Miller, stay with the rover for a second." Raven opens her mouth to argue and Bellamy raises a hand. "Please, Raven, let us scout it out. Monty will check the transmission tower with me and tell you how bad it looks." His eyes stray to Clarke, and she raises her chin defiantly, daring him to test her now. "Clarke," he says grudgingly. "You can come. Emori, you're on her. Don't let her out of your sight."

Emori bumps Clarke's arm with her elbow. 

"You do tend to wander into trouble," she jokes. 

"I don't," Clarke mutters, glaring at the back of Bellamy's head as he trudges off into the forest. "Wandering implies a lack of awareness."

"That's not the convincing argument you think it is," Emori says. She flips her knife idly in one hand as she walks and despite her light teasing, her eyes never stop roving over the dark woods around them. Bellamy knew what he was doing when he assigned her to stay with Clarke. In woods this thick, their guns are more of an intimidation tactic than an effective weapon. Of them all, Emori is the best at hand to hand. If someone gets close enough to Clarke to put her in danger, she's going to be a lot more effective than Bellamy and his bullets will be. 

Clarke stays alert too, but the forest seems peaceful enough. The canopy above is filled with birdsong. Stray seed pods fall occasionally, shaken loose by some small rodent. Clarke watches them fall in their gentle spins and wonders how six years on Earth have done nothing to dull her experience of either its beauty or its danger. Up ahead, Bellamy murmurs a quiet warning for them to step around a sprawling patch of poison ivy, and Monty pushes aside branches. A moment later, he swears. 

"What is it?" Clarke asks urgently, darting up to his side while Bellamy adjusts the butt of the rifle against his shoulder. 

"The solar panels are covered," Monty says, pointing at the transmission tower far above, where the solar array that should be powering the repeater has been thrown into shadow with what looks like a blanket. He starts up the ladder with the typical single-mindedness he gets into when he’s problem-solving.

Clarke’s first thought is that there are better ways to sabotage the connection. More permanent ways. Monty gets to the top of the tower and uncovers the solar array with one quick tug on the foreign blanket. They look fine underneath. Covering the solar panels and starving the relay of power is… well, it has to be deliberate, but it doesn’t really make sense unless -

It’s almost like someone was trying to lure them out.

And just then, they hear Raven shout angrily. Bellamy charges back in the direction they came without hesitation, without heed for poison ivy or low hanging branches that snag at his hair or whatever's pissed off Raven. There's no other option. They run. Clarke hasn't been active lately nearly as often as she probably should be, and her side seizes with a cramp before they make it. She stumbles back into the rover's clearing trying to hide how winded she is, trying to keep her hands from instinctively wrapping around her stomach. Emori tries to pull her back into the bushes, but it's too late to hide. A Grounder wearing a bone-encrusted mask motions them forward with the sharp end of a spear. Clarke swallows hard and puts herself between him and Emori's mutated arm. They've had so many incursions pass without a hitch that maybe they got too cavalier about the very real risk of someone deciding to kill Emori for the perceived insult of her hand. 

The danger feels very real right now.

By the rover, Miller and Raven are on their knees, hands raised. Bellamy lowers his gun. The blades held to the throats of their friends don't leave him with much other choice. 

" _Indra?"_ Clarke says as she's nudged towards the others and finally catches sight of the woman at the front of the Grounder contingent that has them surrounded. Six years ago, Clarke wouldn't have known Indra well enough to identify the tightness around her eyes and the stiff set of her shoulders as reluctance. "What's going on?"

They're well past Trikru's border. There shouldn't be anyone here.

"We were hoping you could tell us," Indra says, her voice dark and strained. "Two days ago, a ship came to Shallow Valley and slaughtered a village."

"Shallow Valley?" Bellamy asks, exchanging a confused look with Clarke. "I thought they were landbound?"

"Not a ship from the sea," Indra snaps, a split second before Monty draws in a sharp, shocked breath. "A ship from the _sky._ "

"There's - " Monty stutters. "There's no one else. No one could have survived on the Ark for another six years - "

"The survivors?" Bellamy asks immediately. The look Indra gives him, might, with a great deal of generosity, almost be considered appreciation. 

"They've taken shelter with other clans," Indra says. 

Clarke understands before the others do. 

"You think Skaikru did it," she says softly, and Indra's eyes go as hard as steel. The warriors holding knives to Miller and Raven do not move a muscle. They don't even appear to be breathing.

"I don't," Indra says. "But the army mustering in Polis to march on Arkadia does, and the Commander must give them a target." Clarke feels a spike of fury and wistfulness and irritation at the mention of Lexa. Years later and the line between love and hatred still seem to blur. She shoves her feelings away.

"Oh my god," Miller says fervently. "There has got to be a better solution than another fucking army."

"That's why I'm here," Indra says coldly. "A war between Skaikru and the other clans will wipe Arkadia out." She pauses. "But it will cost many of our lives."

"We're not allied with whoever's in Shallow Valley," Monty insists. "We found almost all the stations' crash sites, and even if - none of them should have been able to get airborne again. It can't be us."

"What did Kane say? Haven’t you contacted him, or my mom?" Clarke asks quickly. Indra raises her chin.

"Nothing," she says. "The day the ship landed in Shallow Valley, Arkadia closed its gates and went silent. No one's come in or out."

"We've answered enough questions," one of Indra's warriors says to her in a low voice. "It's time to go."

She bows her head. 

"I'm sorry, Skaikru," Indra says. "But we cannot allow you to return home until this war is averted and the Shallow Valley is taken back. Some of you can get back in your rover and we will escort you on horseback. Wanheda rides with me, as insurance."

"No," Bellamy says. 

"Bellamy - " Clarke says. 

"Not Clarke - " Bellamy says, shaking his head even as Indra's eyes flash dangerously.

"I'm not asking, Bellomi - " Indra says. 

"Take me instead," he says. Pleading. "Please, not Clarke."

"She will be safe as long as our people are allies."

"Bellamy!" Clarke insists, grabbing at his arm. He doesn't shake her off, but he doesn't acknowledge her, either. She sees him swallow nervously and reaches out to clamp a hand over his mouth, but he grabs her wrist and pulls her flush against him. His body is shaking. 

"That's not what I'm worried about," Bellamy says quietly. "Indra, she's pregnant."

Silence falls, brokenly only by Monty's surprised gasp, and Clarke closes her eyes against the wave of dread and nausea that threatens to overcome her. She forces them open and looks for Raven's reaction, first. Everyone else is staring at her stomach, trying to map its curve, trying to calculate the weeks in their heads. But Raven stares only at her face with wide, betrayed eyes before shaking her head ever so slightly and turning away. 

"My congratulations," Indra says softly. "And condolences."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING MENTIONED IN HEADER: Clarke is pregnant during the S5 timeline. The pregnancy is not put in danger, there will be no miscarriage or threats towards it, nor will there be any graphic births. There will be births mentioned. This is a fic with a pregnancy in it, but it is not a pregnancy fic, if that makes sense. Do let me know if there’s anything you need warned or discussed by messaging me [on tumblr as kindclaws](https://kindclaws.tumblr.com/) or commenting here.
> 
> I originally wrote [_no good kings, only burning palaces_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21454276) for bellarke bingo, which is just a short one-shot imagining Bellamy leading the delinquents to a new settlement by the ocean while Clarke works as a spy in Polis, slipping them secrets and avoiding her feelings. And then I was like, but what if she went with them? What if she was part of that new life by the ocean? Around the same time I had some great conversations with writers like [@marauders_groupie](https://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com/) and [@alltheworldsinmyhead](https://alltheworldsinmyhead.tumblr.com/) about the things we miss and loved about the season 2/3 era of canon, and also [@kinetic-elaboration](https://kinetic-elaboration.tumblr.com/) wrote [A Watch With No Hands](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19810447/chapters/46905574), which really leaned into pre-apocalypse ruins and a wonderful re-imagined Grounder culture, and all these feelings went into a witch’s cauldron together and out came this story. I really, really loved writing it and hope you love reading it. 
> 
> Hover text tutorial found [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10957056)
> 
> I tried to write in a lot of foreshadowing, so if you’re stuck on something to comment, I’d appreciate guesses on what’s happened or pointing out sentences you find notable or suspicious as a way to help me hone my craft! >:} You can find this fic [here](https://kindclaws.tumblr.com/post/614028840737636353/kindclaws-in-grief-demeter-circles-the-earth) and check what I'm working on in my [writing updates tag.](https://kindclaws.tumblr.com/tagged/sara%27s-writing-upd8s) Thanks so much for reading! *blows a kiss*


	2. those fields of ice will be the meadows of Elysium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CONTENT WARNINGS:** There's a little bit of hurt/comfort at the end, and, um. So I wrote this chapter back in December I think? Well before an incredibly infectious virus was throwing the entire planet into chaos. There's an infectious (but not deadly) virus in this chapter and so there's some focus on treating and containing it. If you're really stressed out about the current state of the world, it might be upsetting? Take care, be safe.
> 
> Also, this is a really long chapter.

#

\- five years earlier

Clarke half-expects one of her fellow runaways to drop dead in the first hour of their exodus. It’d be just their luck. The going is hard, and Bellamy lurking at her side with his rifle out and ready makes it impossible to forget the very real danger or enjoy the hike through the forest. But the first handful of hours slips by, and no spears or boomerangs come flying their way from the trees, and she begins to think that maybe they will be okay. 

They're not the carefree children they were a few months ago. Even though the excitement of freedom buzzes in their low conversations and in the twitching of their fingers, no one runs on ahead, no one dances or laughs underneath the canopy's cool shade. They stick close together, picking a trail over the terrain in packs, always watchful, the delinquents always remembering they were attacked the first time they tried to go to the coast, and Ark tag-alongs adopting the same wariness. Clarke and Bellamy don't even have to remind anyone not to go hunting once they've crossed the border of Skaikru land. They break for dinner that first night underneath the trees, and there are no complaints as they split small, carefully-rationed meals. They're restless, and there's far too much rustling and bored sighs ringing out among the trees for anyone to get restful sleep, but there isn't a single fight.

Oh, Clarke knows it won't last. Right now they're only united by the adrenaline of their exodus and being othered by the adults in the Ark. It's easy to get along in a dark forest when the small, animal part of your brain sees an enemy in every flickering shadow as clouds pass over the moon. They'll split apart soon, remembering petty grudges, growing frustrated enough to start fights. Who grew up on what station. Who broke up with who. But Clarke's determined to get them as far past hostile territory as possible before they start fraying at their stitches. 

When it begins, several days into their hike, Bellamy steps in, and the runaways part around him like fish part for a shark. Even the scattering of adults who have come along, like Sergeant Miller. Clarke hangs back as he makes another speech about relying on each other, about the home and haven they'll have at the end of this. She finds herself nodding along with the crowd, caught up in the surge of his charisma. Her cheeks flush. When they resume walking and he drifts to her side, she stammers out an attempt at a compliment. She didn’t think it was coherent at all, but Bellamy still looks bashful and pleased. She doesn't get involved past that, not when she's still unsure of the alliances the Ark tag-alongs brought with them. 

Mostly, Clarke just keeps walking, and everyone else follows. They are pack creatures, after all. 

After Mount Weather, she walked a lot. After a while it becomes mindless. Soothing. First comes the shortness of breath, the exhaustion in her limbs, the stitches in her calves, the blisters. If you keep pushing through all that, on the other side there's just calm. 

They put one foot in front of the other until they make it to the ocean. 

When they finally break the treeline and the sunlight spills over their faces, Clarke is so overwhelmed she sits down on a nearby rock and turns her face up to the sky. The sun is warm on her brow and cheeks, warm enough that she suspects it'll be uncomfortable in another half hour or so, but right now it's the most beautiful thing she's ever felt. It's like the first moment they stepped out of the dropship all over again. It's another beginning. She opens her eyes and gazes out over the sloping coast before them. The ocean looks endless, from here. A massive void - no, fuller and less knowable than space. 

She wants to stay on that crest for a while, enjoying the view from the high ground, this new land spread out beneath them, but no one else seems to want to linger in the anticipation. The wary discipline that kept the exodus traveling tightly together gives way to the delight of finally seeing the ocean, and the delinquents finally put down the sombreness and run towards the rocky line of the beach, howling and pumping their fists in the air. Only a scattered handful remain near Clarke. Some of the adults like Sergeant Miller, and Bellamy's handpicked militia still bound by their loyalty, and Bellamy himself. Clarke gets up and follows. 

The ocean grows louder with every footstep, and Clarke is not sure she likes it. In a way, it's like being back on the Ark, but the low roar of waves makes for better inescapable background noise than the machine hum they grew up with.

They make camp that night right along the coast, where the rocky pebble beach gives way to softer grass to sleep on, and a massive bonfire casts their shadows dancing across the nearest tree trunks and trumpets their position to anyone who might be watching. They decimate the wild boar that Harper shoots down and finish the last of their travel rations, but that's all right, because they've arrived home, and tomorrow they'll set about gathering and hunting and learning how to fish. The boar is a little too burnt on the outside, a little pinker on the inside than it should be. Clarke wipes a trickle of blood away from her chin with the back of her hand and thinks about the satisfaction of being an apex predator. Bellamy watches her lick her lips with the same satisfaction that Clarke is watching the other delinquents with, and it makes her smile. It's a good feeling, looking around and feeling like you've done good for the ones you love. 

That first night, Clarke sleeps on the rover's hood with Raven, the stars thrown up above their heads by some massive, careless hand. The glass windshield is cool and unyielding against her shoulderblades. There are delinquents sleeping inside the rover too, as many as they could fit, the back doors wide open so their feet hang out the end. Clarke could kick them out. For Raven, they'd move on with only minimal grumbling.

"Are you good here?" Clarke whispers. She sees the silhouette of Raven's profile tilt towards her. 

"Really good," Raven says. 

"Your back - "

"For once in your life, Clarke, can you stop trying to fix everything?" Raven says, exasperated. It doesn't sound as sharp as it could. Clarke fidgets. 

"It's a really nice view," she concedes. Her eyes dart across the darkened sky, looking for familiar constellations, but there are so many stars tonight that the patterns get lost. "Even after we build cabins and everything... I might still sleep out here sometimes."

"Yeah," Raven breathes. "Yeah, they're really beautiful."

Clarke wonders if she misses spacewalking. She must, but maybe they're not good enough friends for Clarke to ask about it. There are conversations they need to have first, about Finn, and the knife, and Raven's refusal to grieve.

"Clarke?" Raven asks, her voice quiet. 

"Yeah?"

"I think we'll be happy here," Raven whispers. "I think it'll all be okay."

"That would be a nice change of pace," Clarke says instead of agreeing. She doesn't think she's going to fall asleep easily, what with the waves crashing against the beach so close by. But they have been walking and on edge for a very long time, and the relief of having gotten somewhere with as many heartbeats as they started out with catches up to her. If she dreams, she doesn't remember any of it. 

Clarke wakes just before dawn to a blanket of thick fog. Raven's face is slack, and there is no other sound from the rest of the delinquents. Clarke watches her for a moment, thinking on last night's conversation, before she carefully slips down the rover's hood. Raven's fingers twitch and she frowns slightly at the sound of Clarke's boots hitting gravel, but she doesn't wake.

The fog doesn't let her see far in any direction - even the nearest trees rise out of it half-shrouded, ghostly - but it's not hard to follow the slow crash of waves. The ground remains firm at the boundary of grass and sand, but when Clarke takes a few more steps onto the beach, her feet sink. She examines the rocky sand around her with some suspicion for a moment, before taking her boots off and hanging them around her neck. Every other step forward makes her wince. The beach is dotted with broken seashells and pebbles that haven't yet been worn smooth by the ocean, and the soles of her feet still feel too soft for the Earth sometimes. 

As she heads into the fog, a silhouette emerges. He turns to look over his shoulder as she makes her way closer, one careful step at a time. The nearer Clarke gets to the ocean, the softer the sand seems to be. She sinks ankle-deep at Bellamy's side and wriggles her toes in muted wonder. 

"Makes you humble, doesn't it?" Bellamy asks, and he's clearly taken aback when Clarke starts to laugh. "What?"

"I was just - " she waves a hand vaguely. "Was just thinking that a few months ago, humble is the _last_ word either of us would have used to describe the other."

"Second-last, maybe," Bellamy says, squinting at her. It's hard not to squint, here at the edge of the world. A strong wind blows in from the ocean, whipping their hair into their faces, and even though the sky is still gray and foggy it is still shockingly bright. "After meek, or cooperative."

Clarke lets her jaw drop in mock outrage, but the smile that her face melts into, that's all involuntary. 

"Have you gone in yet?" Bellamy asks, jerking his head towards the ocean, looking suddenly uncomfortable under the full force of her attention. 

"No," Clarke says. "I was just about to."

Bellamy raises his eyebrows, so Clarke tugs the hem of her pants up a bit and steps forward. The waves pull back as she approaches, as if making room, and then a big one rushes for her ankles all at once. Clarke draws in a sharp shrieks of a breath as freezing cold water drenches her feet and splashes up to her knees. She scrambles backwards to Bellamy's side, shaking off droplets.

"I didn't think it would be so cold!" she cries, and then she is laughing like she hasn't laughed in months; out of breath, with her cheeks burning and her ribcage cramping up. When she finally looks up, Bellamy's heart face is stricken. Her laughter fades immediately. "Are you all right?" she demands.

"Yes," he says quickly, and then his face is neutral again, the expression she caught gone so quickly she's left wondering if she imagined it. Bellamy takes a long look up the slope of the beach where the delinquents are still sleeping somewhere in the fog, and for a moment the only sound between them is the crash of waves. Clarke is not ready to share him yet.

"Walk with me?" she asks, and she feels relief like a warmth in her chest when Bellamy nods. They wander aimlessly south, Clarke barefoot where the waves lap weakly against the sand, Bellamy a step or two higher up on firmer sand, his gun never far from his hand.

They don't speak at first, but eventually the ideas begin to pour out. Clarke wants to build latrines before anyone gets sick. Bellamy wants to prioritize building a defendable common area, like the dropship they left behind. But before they build anything they'll need to scout out the surrounding land. Clarke thinks there might be structures from before the apocalypse still standing, Bellamy is more worried about making contact with the nearest Grounder villages and measuring how hostile - or friendly - they might be. There's no question whether or not Bellamy will go. Clarke wants to come along too, wonders if the name Wanheda might earn them more respect, even if just the thought of it is enough to make her feel sick, but Bellamy argues convincingly that one of them should stay and keep the delinquents out of trouble. By the time they decide he'll take Miller, Harper, and Lincoln - with Octavia likely tagging along - Clarke's feet have gone numb from the water, and the fog is starting to lift. The world around them is beautiful by daylight, every rock and leaf made more vivid by the ocean on their other side, and Clarke knows Bellamy is excited too, because they walk back to the delinquents faster than they walked away. 

The world is theirs again, open and full of freedom the way it was when the dropship first landed. No more bunkers. No more strict laws. No more electric fences or shocklashes. They make the rules now.

...Except that when they get back, it is just in time to see delinquents scrambling out of the way of a falling tree and to hear it crash against the ground seconds later. 

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy," Bellamy says, a little rueful. He's smiling the sort of smile that Clarke thinks means he's trying to hide it. It only brings his dimples to her attention more. 

"The enemy?" Clarke asks with disbelieving laughter. "Is that what we're calling our people now?"

"Let's go figure out what the hell they're doing," he says, speeding up. "What is this?" Bellamy demands loudly, pushing himself to the front of the crowd that has gathered. For a moment no one wants to answer him. Bree is the one who gathers her courage first. 

"We need wood to build our new homes out of," she declares, and the boys who are trying to hide the saw behind their backs decide that maybe it is worth showing off instead. 

"Hold on," Clarke says, "We haven't scouted the area yet, there could be somewhere better - "

"Clarke," Harper says exasperatedly, grabbing her shoulders and spinning her around to face the ocean on their doorstep. "Look at this view. What could be better than this?"

She's right. It's beautiful. Clarke takes a deep breath and reminds herself that this isn't the Ark. That they ran away because they didn't want to be part of the Ark anymore, and that means that suddenly, not everything in their life needs to be optimized for maximum utility. Maybe “it’s beautiful” is a good enough reason to start building their home right here.

"We still need to scout," she says, meeting Bellamy's gaze. "Get to know our new backyard."

The delinquents erupt in cheers, and even Bellamy is holding back a smile. If Clarke lets herself think about it, it is actually really cute that what looks like the majority of the delinquents got up just after dawn to start working. She's not the only one who is ready to make a home. 

"All right, let's be smart about this!" Bellamy shouts, and Clarke watches the delinquents' faces as he reminds them of the dangers and tells them to listen to Raven when it comes to the heavy tools. He appoints Monroe and Thomas to the first watch, and the crew he picks out for the scouting party steps up without hesitation, their chins held high. The runaways aren't soldiers, most of them. They still fidget and slouch as they listen, but there's a certain razor-sharp intent in their faces as Clarke and Bellamy divy them up into work crews. Everyone who is here wants to be here, wants to contribute. Everyone who is here was suffocating back in Arkadia. 

_We did the right thing_ , Clarke thinks, and calm settles over her. _We had to leave._

She catches Bellamy's hand as he turns to lead the scouting party out.

"Be safe," she tells him. He pauses. Considers her.

"You too," he says gruffly, and then he is gone.

\- five years later 

Indra originally wants half of them on horseback with her warriors, but Bellamy negotiates her down to two at a time, rotating as they get too sore to continue. Raven's leg exempts her from riding, and by unspoken agreement everyone wants to keep Emori out of sight as much as possible. Bellamy and Monty take the first 'shift' to be hostages, leaving Raven to drive, Clarke in the passenger seat, and Emori and Miller quietly murmuring in the back. 

Clarke suspects they're discussing the chances of breaking free of their Trikru captors, but she knows that when it comes down to it, they don't have a choice. Indra doesn't need Bellamy and Monty as insurance that they won't break away in the rover. Not when an army is marching to avenge the Shallow Valley, and every life in Arkadia depends on them finding out what the hell happened to the Shallow Valley.

If Monty says none of the missing Ark fragments should have been able to get airborne again, then Clarke believes him. But it sure as hell couldn't have been a Grounder clan, and when Clarke tries to imagine a third option her mind goes blank and flighty, like she's staring down a panther in the forest. She's not ready to ask the right questions yet. 

She glances to her side. Raven's knuckles are several shades paler than the rest of her skin, clenched as they are around the steering wheel like she's ready to tear it off and clobber one of Indra's warriors with it for having the audacity to kidnap them. Her face is blank and terrifying.

"Hey," Clarke says quietly.

"Oh, now you want to talk?"

Clarke winces as the sharpness of Raven's retort makes Miller and Emori's discussion in the back of the rover fall silent. When they start talking again a moment later it is a little stiff, a little forced. The only illusion of privacy they can give Clarke and Raven right now. She splays her hand over the subtle curve of her stomach and wishes the circumstances were better.

"The only people I told so far were Bellamy, because we're in this together, and Harper because I was half-hysterical over the thought of giving birth in a forest and I needed someone who had done it already to smack me and tell me it'll be fine. I didn't..." Clarke trails off. "I wanted to tell you as soon as I knew, but I was scared."

"Clarke Griffin doesn't get scared," Raven mutters, but the anger is already bleeding out of her voice, leaving behind only the hurt that nurtured it.

"She does," Clarke says, letting her head fall back against the headrest with a thump after a particularly bumpy portion of road. "Bellamy and I disagreed on whether or not we should hide the entire pregnancy and pretend the kid was someone else's."

" _What_."

"Well he made sure that's not an option now," Clarke says exasperatedly.

"Clarke, what kind of dumbass thought process led to that absolutely _idiotic_ idea?" Raven asks.

"The child of Wanheda will be a target," Clarke says, and the long silence that follows tells her that even Raven, who pays about as much attention to Grounder politics as she does to gossip and ghost stories, cannot disagree. "They deserve to grow up free and unafraid," Clarke whispers. "Not locked up and kept safe."

"After what happened to Octavia, I kinda get your point," Raven murmurs. "But Clarke... you've met Bellamy. You know he'd never be able to stay away from his kid, and no one would believe he'd have one with someone who isn't you. I love you, but I don't think you thought this secret baby plan out properly."

"I didn't," Clarke admits, and Raven must hear the hitch in her breath over the rover's engine, because she lets go of the steering wheel with one hand to grab Clarke's arm. Her grip is tight and unyielding. "I was scared," Clarke says, trying to keep her lower jaw from trembling so visibly. "But I need you on my side. You're my best friend and I want you to be this baby's godmother. I need to know we're going to be okay."

"We are," Raven promises fiercely, a muscle in her jaw twitching under tension. She keeps staring forward through the windshield as she drives them over a shallow stream, and only then does she glance at Clarke. Her gaze flickers between her face and her stomach. "I won't let anything happen to you.”

A few moments later, after Clarke has taken deep breaths and wiped away the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, Emori leans over the seat and adds, "I thought you were just really enjoying Murphy's cooking," and Clarke's laughter bursts out of her like a single exclamation mark.

"Who _isn't_ enjoying it?" she replies, thinking with longing of his meals. She's suddenly glad he insisted on sending them off with so much food. Who knows when they’ll get to return to their beautiful, sun-dappled home again?

Raven smiles, but her hands remain clenched in a death grip around the steering wheel, betraying her fear.

\- five years earlier

Earth has been a series of peaceful moments interspersed with nightmares since they landed, and it seems only natural that the good luck that marks the start of their exodus should run out. That's not to say that things don't go wrong. They do. The first desalination still that Monty and Raven build out of an old satellite dish is too low on the beach, and a high tide sweeps away its foundation and sends most of their newly made drinking water spilling back into the ocean. Three delinquents get into a massive fight that halts the construction of new cabins until Clarke sits them each down and figures out that somewhere along the way they forgot to clarify they're all in love with the other two. There are even a few near-drownings as they test their swimming abilities against the current.

She's relieved when Bellamy's scouting party returns only two days later with no sign of injury, and laden with more supplies than they set out with. Her eyes seek Bellamy out first. They always do, these days. It's their hottest day on the ground yet as they near the summer's apex, and Clarke watches Bellamy's shirt cling to his torso as he heaves a bursting backpack off his shoulders and onto a nearby boulder instead of paying attention to what he's actually pulling out to show them. They're all sweaty, but it's not fair that it looks so good on him. Clarke makes no move to walk to him yet, just watches his tired smile as Monty comes up to ask him a question. It's comfort enough that he looks like he's all right. It makes her feel itchy, the suddenly feverish need she feels to go to him, to examine the shoulder he's gently rubbing, to tell him everything he's missed in the camp. 

She realizes she's staring a moment later, and rushes forward to help Lincoln with his pack instead. She's still supernaturally aware of Bellamy's presence behind her, the low register of his voice as he speaks with Monty. 

"Any trouble with the other clans?" she asks Lincoln quietly, forcing the problem of Bellamy's fantastic arms away from the forefront of her mind.

"We didn't see anyone," Lincoln says, unzipping his pack to reveal a dozen tightly-wrapped rolls of fabric. "We went far enough north to see one of Yujleda's sigils carved into a tree and turned back, and the other nearest clan is Floukru." He hesitates a moment. "We are far enough that there should not be any dispute over this territory. And Luna is not the kind to attack first."

"If she does," Octavia says as she saunters to Lincoln's side, having dropped her own pack by Bellamy, "We'll be ready." 

She cuts a fearsome figure with her braids and sword, dressed more like a Grounder than Lincoln himself. But Lincoln does not say anything in reply, and Clarke thinks the flicker in his eyes might be disappointment.

Then a hand touches her arm, and Clarke knows it's Bellamy even before she shifts to make room for him in their circle. 

"Honestly, it's mostly good news," Bellamy confirms. "No contact with any Grounders, and it looks like we're far enough past their borders that no one will say we stole their land. The hunting is a little sparse to the west, but the best part is a bunker we found to the south. We thought it was just a ruin at first - I think it used to be a hotel, because there’s so many little rooms - and that was already worth exploring, but then Lincoln found a vault door.”

“That’s where all this is from,” Octavia says, pulling out one of the rolls Lincoln packed and shaking it out to reveal a blanket in astoundingly good condition. No holes, no mothballs. Better, even, then something they might have had on the Ark, handed down three or four generations already. “And there’s way more. Tools, canned _everything_. Weapons.”

“ _Toothpaste_ ,” Bellamy tells her, handing her a tube so shiny she has no trouble believing it came from the past.

“You trying to tell me something?” she asks teasingly.

“We all smell a little ripe,” Bellamy admits with a shrug. “But seriously - there’s more where that came from. I think we should move everyone there,” Bellamy says, looking directly to Clarke. He raises his chin and for a moment Clarke’s memory replaces him with the Bellamy she knew in their first days on the ground. Clarke blinks and she’s back in the present. The differences are both minor and staggering. Just a slight softness to his eyes that wasn’t there before, and the undercurrent of urgency in his voice that she has learned to recognize not as manipulation but his eagerness to share something with her, to show her his thoughts. Small differences. It’s still Bellamy, but he doesn’t infuriate her nearly as much as he used to.

“We’ve already made so much progress here,” Clarke says, not as harshly as she once would have. She tilts her head at Lincoln. “What do you think?”

“Winter will be hard,” Lincoln says simply.

“But not impossible?” Clarke prompts, and Lincoln’s forehead furrows ever so slightly. When he shakes his head and looks away a moment later, Clarke takes it to mean he doesn’t think it’ll be impossible, but he doesn’t want the decision to lie with him either way.

“Let’s put it to a vote,” Bellamy urges. “Let’s prove this won’t be the Ark again.”

It doesn’t take long to spread the word. 

Back at the dropship, they had the gorge when they wanted to hold a meeting with everyone - or, more commonly, Clarke thinks with exasperated fondness, when Bellamy wanted to make a dramatic speech. There are a little less than a hundred of them now, even with their numbers supplemented with disillusioned Arkadians, and they all fit into a small clearing just a minute or so's walk into the woods at the edge of the beach. At the center there is a fallen tree with a curtain of moss. Bellamy leaps onto it easily and Clarke resolutely does not admire what this angle does for his thighs. He extends his hand out to her and after a second’s hesitation she finds a foothold in the bark and climbs up. The rotting wood sags slightly under their weight but holds.

"Do we have everyone?" Bellamy calls out, his voice carrying over the excited murmurs of the crowd of villagers milling about the clearing.

"Bellamy brought birthday presents for everyone!" someone in the back hollers, and Bellamy smirks at that, pulling out a can of processed meat and tossing it from hand to hand.

"Not quite, but close," he answers, and in a loud and clear voice he tells them all what the scouting party found. Clarke stands at his side with her arms crossed and half-listens, noting any extra details he adds, but her focus is on the listening crowd. She interrupts Bellamy once to snap at two young boys more interested in jabbing each other in the ribs than paying attention, and the sheepish pride on their faces after she calls them out reminds her like a knife twisting of Monty and Jasper, a lifetime ago.

She can’t look at them again, not without the guilt rising like a wave, and scans the other faces. Some delinquents nod along with every word Bellamy says - others, whose enthusiasm has led the building efforts here, look more skeptical. It’s close enough to an even split that she can’t guess what the final vote will be.

Bellamy calls for the vote and Clarke watches the hands go up, noting the ones that are decisive and the ones that hesitate and look to others first. She and Bellamy do separate counts and reach the same number.

They’re staying here.

She catches up to Bellamy later, takes some of the supplies weighing down his arms so they’re sharing the load as they walk back to the budding village. Clarke glances between his face and the tree roots she has to step over, trying to read the set of his face without falling on her own.

“Are you upset?” she asks. He doesn’t look it. Just thoughtful.

“It wasn’t as close to the water,” he admits with a rueful smile. “We have a better view here, and a head start on building, and we can send groups over to strip the useful stuff from the bunker. But… the hotel was beautiful. White stone with Corinthian columns, all covered in ivy. I’m not gonna lie, if we lived there, I’d be fantasizing about Ancient Greece constantly.”

Clarke laughs out loud in delight.

“I can’t believe you’re actually a nerd, deep down,” she says, and she keeps grinning even as Bellamy body-checks her into a blackberry bush.

That first summer by the ocean is the best of her life.

They build a longhouse first, where most of the delinquents sleep in small groups divided by hanging tarps for privacy. Then the mess hall, with shutters they can throw wide to let the smoke out and the sound of the ocean in. Clarke gets a room in the back of her medbay, and the first night after its construction is finished she lies awake watching the reflection of moonlight on her ceiling, until Bellamy knocks on the door and says he can’t sleep without her. The nightmares still haunt both of them, but not so often. Aside from a minor border skirmish with the Yujleda clan, no one bothers them, and every day feels dream-like and perfect. A few of the villages even start trading with them. Harper scatters wildflower seeds at every doorstep and soon they have to hack paths through them with a saw just to be able to walk anywhere. After a black bear tears apart their pantry looking for food, Raven builds a pulley system and they learn to wrap up their food reserves in tarps and suspend them from narrow branches every night. Clarke learns how to swim, and kiss scraped knees, and sleep through the high tide’s pounding waves.

She should have known it wouldn't last.

\- five years later

Indra has them make camp that first night in a trading outpost that barely deserves to be called a permanent settlement. Clarke watches the negotiation through the windshield. She thinks the blue beaded sashes the merchants wear mean they’re part of Delphikru, which might explain the sullen hostility. The merchant snaps at the children that crack open a door to peek at the strangers on their doorstep, and the tiny fingers and curious eyes retreat. Indra crosses her arms, and finally the merchant gestures at the other side of the grassy clearing and turns his back.

The rest of the warriors dismount and unbuckle bedding rolls from their saddles. Clarke takes this as an invitation to open the rover door.

“Be careful,” Emori murmurs, winding her hand into the passenger seat and squeezing Clarke’s shoulder before she can get out. None of the responses that immediately come to Clarke are kind enough to say, so she bites her tongue and lets herself drop to the ground. Her hand braces her belly instinctively as she lands, and the nearest Trikru warrior’s eyes follow the movement. She snorts and turns away with such disdain that Clarke thinks it must have been practiced.

A fight boils underneath Clarke’s skin. She still thinks of Indra as an ally, but being taken hostage and kept away from her people, her _home_ , is testing her patience. She’s lucky Bellamy slips off the back of the horse he’s been ordered to ride and runs straight to her before she can start something with one of the warriors.

Bellamy slows and reaches out for her, visibly relieved to see that she’s fine. Clarke sidesteps his hug and crosses her arms over her chest.

“What the hell was that?” she snaps, struggling to keep her voice low. Bellamy’s face goes hard and guarded.

“It was to keep you safe.”

She expected an answer along those lines, but it doesn’t soothe any part of her.

“We didn’t agree on telling everyone.”

“We didn’t agree on keeping the baby a secret, either,” he responds coolly.

“Well now we’re never going to get to agree on it,” Clarke says, throwing her hands in the air. “You just took away my choice.” The muscle in Bellamy’s jaw that always twitches when he’s holding back his anger twitches now, and Clarke wants to keep pushing, wants to see him as angry as she feels. Wants the fight even if she knows it won’t make her feel better.

Six years ago they would have ran into that fight headfirst and unflinching. Now, she sees the way Bellamy pulls himself back, exhaling heavily and straightening his shoulders so he’s not bent towards her. She sees him forfeit and it hits her straight in the gut, the way nothing else would.

“And if it keeps you alive, you can be as mad as you want at me,” he says, and he turns to walk away, his shoulders tense. Clarke feels a lump rise to her throat and reaches out to empty air.

“Bellamy, if you walk away now and - and things go wrong, you’ll never forgive yourself,” she says quietly. He stops, but he doesn’t look at her for a moment.

“You’re right,” he says, and Clarke’s relief when he comes back and takes her hand nearly makes her knees buckle. Her anger suddenly feels shameful, especially in the face of his gentleness. Bellamy rubs at the base of her ring finger, where the navy ink still stands out bright against her paler skin. “We’ll fix everything,” he promises, so soft she can barely hear. “We’ll find out what happened at Shallow Valley, and our child will grow up in peace. I promise. The things we’ve done, they'll be just scary stories.”

“You can’t promise that,” Clarke says automatically. “You don’t know how it’ll turn out.”

“I will turn that army around if it kills me,” Bellamy says stubbornly.

“Don’t. Not even as a joke,” Clarke says, leaning her forehead against his arm. With the anger bleeding out of her she’s left feeling exhausted. She just… she just wants to hold her husband, before they’re driven apart in the morning by Indra’s warriors. She sighs and feels the weight of the world on her. “I’d rather live through a permanent war with you by my side than peace without you.”

“Still?” Bellamy asks wistfully.

“Still,” Clarke says. “We’re already monsters. What’s another tragedy?” The joke doesn’t sound as funny when she says it out loud.

They part as Indra approaches, standing with their heads high and their hands clutched. Indra’s always been difficult to read, even more now as she wars with their history and her loyalty. For a moment Clarke thinks she will separate her and Bellamy for the night, too. But Indra only holds out the bundle of furs she had tucked underneath her arm. A bedroll.

“The ground is hard here,” Indra says.

“We don’t need pity,” Clarke says coolly.

“It’s not pity,” Indra says stiffly. She hesitates, and uncertainty is such a foreign expression to see on her face that Clarke almost feels guilty for having witnessed it. “It’s… it’s what Lincoln would have done.”

Clarke looks down, blinking away the sudden sting in her eyes. Bellamy says nothing as Indra walks away. _We have to stop that army,_ she thinks. _Whatever it takes._

\- four and a half years earlier

"You don't have to hold onto the wheel that tightly," Raven says. "You're not going to fall out the window."

"Okay," Clarke responds, making a conscious effort to relax her grip a little.

"There's literally no way for this to go wrong," Raven says, in a slow and deliberate tone that walks the line between comforting and condescending. She gestures at the open meadow beyond the windshield. Honeysuckle and yellow lion's-mouths sway at knee-height. The nearest trees are barely visible over a distant hill, and though the air is crisp and chill, the sunlight is warm when it finds gaps in the lazy white clouds. In other words, it's a beautiful autumn afternoon for Clarke to thoroughly embarrass herself. "Just start the engine."

Clarke takes a deep breath and turns the key. The rover rumbles awake instantly, and Clarke feels a small thrill as it vibrates through her clenched hands and underneath her. The Ark used to feel like this sometimes, like a beast with coiled muscles, waiting to spring forward. She doesn't miss the Ark much, but pieces of it sometimes bring up an unexpected fondness. 

"Use just your right foot to switch between the pedals," Raven reminds her. "Using your left will tempt you into pressing both the acceleration and the brakes if you panic, and then both me and the drive shaft will make very ugly noises."

"Uh huh," Clarke says, wondering if Raven knows that she doesn't know what a drive shaft is, and very, very carefully lowers her foot onto the acceleration. Or at least, what she thinks is the acceleration pedal.

The rover's engine thrums louder, but they don't budge an inch. Not even a lurch.

"Why aren't we moving?" Clarke asks. 

"You haven't put it in drive," Raven says with long-suffering patience, pointing at the gear. "Let's start from the top. Walk me through the steps again."

Clarke turns off the engine and starts to recite. 

"Check the battery, fold solar panels according to weather - "

"We already did that, you can skip it - " 

"Then I'll get confused - "

Raven puts her head in her hands and groans.

"Are you _trying_ to be so bad at this?" she cries out, muffled by her fingers.

"I'm really, really not," Clarke says honestly, and she stares at Raven, and Raven lifts up her head and stares back, and a moment later they're both laughing until it's painful.

"Okay," Raven says. "You already checked the solar panels and adjusted your mirrors. Just turn the key." Clarke starts the rover. "Shift into drive. Now - gently push the acceleration."

Clarke eases her foot onto the acceleration so gently that for a moment the rover just growls in place. When she sees Raven open her mouth out of the corner of her eye, Clarke floors it. And then they're shooting across the meadow and Clarke feels heady with all this power under her fingertips. _Fuck_ , Clarke should have asked someone to teach her to drive earlier. This is exhilarating. She can't believe how quickly the trees at the distant edge of the meadow loom up in her windshield's view. 

"Now turn!" Raven says, obviously delighted, overcome by the same sort of feral joy that is gripping Clarke now. A brief spurt of doubt threatens to ruin that - she hasn't turned before, and Raven wasn't clear on how to do that, but she spins the wheel around like she's seen her and Bellamy do, one hand over the over. They're still carrying serious speed, and the rover leans heavily on one side, threatening to tip under the sharp u-turn. Flowers crunch under the rover's weight as the wheels dig past them, squealing against mud. It feels good to be destructive in a way that barely matters.

"Oh my god," Clarke shouts.

Raven rolls down her window and howls up at the cloud-dappled sky. 

"Four wheel drive, baby!" she screams, and Clarke feels her thump her fist against the rover's carriage.

For a few minutes as they tear around the meadow, Clarke forgets the grief that has been her ever-present companion the past months. Then, on the way back, with the engine at a lower gear and the silence of the forest around them, Raven asks:

"Sometimes I forget to miss him. Does that make me a bad person?"

Clarke can't look at her or she's afraid she'll veer off the thin gravel track and straight into a tree. 

"You're one of the best people I know," Clarke says, which doesn't really answer the question, but is probably more comforting to hear. 

"I didn't really recognize him, once I got to the ground," Raven admits quietly. Clarke thinks she understands clinging to someone after they've betrayed you because you have no one else. "I know you had to kill him now. I know there was no other way out."

She has to reach out and grab the steering wheel as Clarke's eyes suddenly fill with tears and the road's edges get blurred. They don't say much more than that, but Clarke feels the relief between them, like sunlight, the quiet after an afternoon of yelling into oncoming wind. 

Raven's voice is gentler once they get back to the village and she instructs Clarke how to park. Bellamy strolls past with a haul of firewood just as she kills the engine and slips out of the driver's seat. 

"Learning how to be a badass, Clarke?" he jokes. 

"Something like that."

She can pinpoint the moment he notices her eyes are a little red, that Raven has limped off without saying goodbye. His smile fades and his shoulders get a new tension. 

"Did you fight?" he asks lowly, and Clarke doesn't doubt for a second that he wouldn't haul them off to figure it out if they had. He's too protective of them both to let them fracture further apart. 

"Honestly," Clarke says, letting her relief seep into her voice. "I think this is the best we've ever been."

“Okay,” Bellamy says slowly, watching Raven’s retreating back. He nods thoughtfully. “Okay.” His eyes are soft again when he returns his attention to her. “Do you have a minute to talk about the chore rotation?”

“I have more than a minute for you,” Clarke says, falling into step with him, and then immediately wishes she wasn’t so terribly transparent. She glances sideways, but he doesn’t seem to react at all to her words.

“I know we thought latrine duty was a good punishment for Klaus,” Bellamy says, “But the poor kid threw up while you were gone. I want him to smarten up, but I don’t want him to actually suffer. You got any ideas?”

“Is he all right?” Clarke asks with a frown.

“Just a little green, last I saw,” Bellamy says. “I sent him to the mess to drink some water and sit. He’s not the only one feeling queasy today, so we might have had a bad batch of venison yesterday.”

Clarke stops in her tracks.

“There are multiple people feeling sick today, and you sent one to the _mess_ ,” she asks. “Where he’s absolutely guaranteed to spread it to everyone else if it’s something viral?”

Bellamy blinks. A year ago her tone would have had him closing off and getting hostile. Now his concern comes without any defensiveness.

“ _Is_ it something viral? What should I have done?” he asks.

“Send them to the medbay next time,” Clarke says, dialing back her own frustration. It’s not Bellamy’s fault some of the delinquents still don’t follow the handwashing guide she wasted an entire piece of paper on.

They reach the longhouse and Clarke stuffs her hands into her pockets to warm them up as Bellamy dumps his load of firewood next to the wall with a low grunt. Before they can decide what to do with Klaus though, they hear a commotion rising on the other side of camp and suddenly there’s a whole chorus of delinquents running in every direction, hollering Clarke and Bellamy’s names. They exchange a single look and start running.

At the center of the ripples of chaos, like a stone thrown into water, is Miller, determinedly limping forward despite his dad and Harper trying to slow him down. He’s supposed to be out by their borders, on patrol.

“What is it?” Clarke asks, searching for blood, and not being relieved when she doesn’t see any.

“There’s a squadron from the Ark in the woods,” Miller says between breathless pants. He sways in his dad’s grip. “They’re looking for us. Mr. Pike’s leading them, you know, Charles Pike.”

Their old Earth Skills teacher? _Weird._

“Did they hurt you?” Bellamy demands.

“What?” Miller says, blinking rapidly. “No, no I just caught my foot in a rabbit hole running back to give you guys warning. They’re not hostile, they’re just pushy. Monroe’s escorting them in on the deer path. They’re probably half an hour out.”

“It’s probably just sprained,” Clarke says to herself, pushing Miller to sit on a nearby tree stump by the shoulders. He didn’t listen to Harper or his dad, but he goes down without additional fight under her steely glare. “Stay off that ankle until I can give you a good look.” She looks at Bellamy. “How do you want to do this?”

“Carefully,” Bellamy says. “We didn’t leave on the best of terms. I think Monroe made a good call. If we lead them in, we look like they’re giving them permission to visit.”

“You sure they didn’t seem hostile?” Clarke asks Miller. “Were they armed?”

“Well, yeah,” Miller says. “But they’d have to be, there’s a lot of Grounders between us and Arkadia. We hid for a while, but they didn’t talk much, so we stepped out and said hi. They lowered their guns when they recognized us, he said he wants to talk.”

“It would be good to get news from Arkadia,” Clarke says grudgingly, and she’s pleased when Bellamy nods along. “Mess hall, do you think? Or should we talk outside the wall?”

“I don’t really want them inside, but if we ever want to open trade with Arkadia, we should probably play nice.” Bellamy mutters, “But they leave their guns at the wall. David, I want an extra shift guarding the wall when they come in, and have them move outside the mess hall after us. _Discreetly_.”

“On it,” Miller’s dad says. He pats his son’s shoulder once more and jogs away to scare up some recruits. Bellamy turns to Clarke.

“Should we have everyone else hunker down in the longhouse?” he asks quietly.

“No,” Clarke says fiercely. “Let them see us thrive.”

Half an hour later, the warning bell by the gate tolls twice and everyone who isn’t armed and waiting on the wall is going about their day with a casualness that seems so overt to Clarke that she groans into her palm before taking a deep breath and marching to the gate. Two delinquents kicking a ball back and forth nod at her as she passes, their straight backs and solemn faces a stark contrast to the playfulness they’re trying to evoke. Harper hitches a basket of cabbage up against her hip and falls into step with Clarke.

“What’s with the cabbages?” Clarke whispers.

“Grenades,” Harper says, with an alarming amount of cheerfulness. Clarke eyes the basket a little more nervously. She can only see leafy green heads from this angle, but if Harper says there are explosives hidden underneath, Clarke believes her.

“Fine,” she answers with a long-suffering sigh.

When the gates open they’re there waiting: Bellamy with his hangun casually holstered, Clarke with her arms crossed, Harper and her basket. She’s both disappointed and relieved that neither Kane nor her mother are with the Arkadians, but maybe it’s easier this way. She’ll send a letter. Pike is at the front of his group of guards, herded by Monroe and Octavia and the rest of the patrol. Pike watches David carry away a basket full of their weapons with too much interest, so Clarke steps into his line of sight, forces him to look at her.

“Mr. Pike,” she says, smiling as she extends her hand. His hand is callused and chapped. She has a cream for that, and decides she’ll share it if this meeting goes well. “Been a long time since we were your students. How have you been?”

“It’s Chancellor, now,” Pike says, and Clarke manages to hide her surprise slightly better than Bellamy does.

“How did that happen?”

“A vote of no confidence in the previous leadership,” Pike says, with a slightly stiff smile. “Your mother stepped down with her usual dignity. Remarkable woman.”

“I remember,” Clarke says, feeling distant from the proceedings, like she’s listening in to her own body from a radio. She was so sure she’d be able to remain cool and controlled, put on a strong face. But all the arguments she’s prepared in her head depend on her mother being the one giving orders. Pike’s promotion leaves her unsteady, and a little confused. Earth Skills was not exactly a leadership position on the Ark. Actually, it was kind of a joke. Clarke copied Wells’ homework and doodled on her notes. If someone had told her back then that Pike would somehow become Chancellor, she would have laughed along with everyone else.

“Dinner’s not ready yet,” Bellamy says brusquely. “But we can offer you drinks, snacks.”

Behind Pike, Octavia rolls her eyes but remains, thankfully, silent.

“It’s been a long walk,” Pike says with a chuckle as some of the tension breaks. “I don’t think any of us would say no.” Murmurs of assent from behind him. Clarke and Bellamy sandwich Pike on the way to the mess hall, and behind his head, Clarke raises an eyebrow as if to say _when did you get so polite and diplomatic?_ Bellamy shrugs, answering _I picked something up from you._ She’s glad he stepped in when he saw her falter.

Pike’s gaze roves over every inch of their village as they walk. He notices their vegetable gardens, and the seashell chimes dangling in nearly every window, and the two armed guards already standing watch outside the mess hall’s door, and says nothing. Clarke cannot read anything from the faint but perfectly pleasant smile on his face. Pike has brought seven guards with him. Bellamy and Harper push two tables together for them while Clarke opens up the shutters that face towards the ocean. It’s getting a little too chilly to have the wind coming in like this, but Pike’s people show no inclination to take off their heavy bulletproof vests, and some small and spiteful part of her wants them to see the ocean. Wants them to understand the beauty of the home her people built without them. Pike sits at the junction of the two tables and traces the elevation difference between them with a callused finger. Clarke sits down across from him and juts her chin out, daring him to judge their chances of survival by their uneven tables.

“You made a charming little village, all things considered,” Pike says. He nods in gratitude as a delinquent sets clay mugs with hot tea on the table and darts away. Octavia finds a seat in the corner of the mess hall and starts sharpening her sword with long, deliberate scrapes of her whetstone. The sound makes Clarke want to wince, but it’s impossible to stop Octavia when she gets in this mood, so she focuses on Pike.

“Thank you,” Clarke says to him, crossing her legs and leaning back. “You’ll be able to take good news back to my mother.”

“I’ll be frank with you, Clarke,” Pike says with a smile. “This isn’t a social call. Winter is about to set in, and you remember how miserable the first one was. How are you planning on feeding everyone?”

“We have gardens - “

Pike scoffs.

“Yes, enough for a nice garnish on an empty plate,” he says.

“We’ve made jams, pickles,” Clarke continues, like he hasn’t said anything. She lets a sharp and cold edge creep into her voice. A trick she learned from her mother, funny enough. “Smoked fish - you should take some back with you, by the way. Gotten pretty good at hunting. And we’ve started trade with a few nearby villages.”

Pike’s snort now is even more derisive.

“You’ve always been a smart girl, Clarke. You can’t tell me you actually trust the Grounders not to starve you out.”

“ _Skaikru_ claiming the moral high ground!” Octavia says in the background with enough scorn to rival Pike.

“Lasting peace starts with a leap of faith on both sides,” Clarke says.

“Words so pretty they could have come from the Commander holding Arkadia prisoner,” Pike says, and at this Bellamy sits up straight in his seat. The look on his face as he leans forward, elbows on the table, is all fury and love. Clarke feels a spark of the old hurt come up with the mention of Lexa. She can never remember the good without the moment of betrayal, when she was left alone at Mount Weather’s gate.

“There’s been an attack?” he asks urgently.

“Not yet,” Pike says. “But they’re not letting us expand our borders or plant enough crops. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Take that back!” Octavia says, jumping to her feet.

“ _Sit down_ , Octavia,” Clarke says sharply, and the younger Blake sneers at her. “Around here we like to make our decisions based on more than paranoia,” Clarke continues with a pointed look at Pike, and Bellamy leans back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest, glowering at the room at large. Octavia sits down only grudgingly, and resumes sharpening her blade with increasingly disruptive scraping sounds. There’s no way for Clarke to tell her to stop without making them both seem immature, so she decides to pretend it’s part of a larger plan to show Pike they’re not weak.

“It’s not paranoia,” Pike says, his voice kind and fatherly, and Clarke privately wonders if he’s _asking_ to get stabbed by Octavia. “It’s good sense. Winter is on its way, and soon it will be nearly impossible for everyone in this village to make the trip back to Arkadia safely. You’ve made your point about independence, and I will not make the previous administration’s mistakes. You’ve proven you’re not just children, and you’ll get a say in Arkadia’s matters - “

“With all due respect, Chancellor,” Clarke interrupts. “If we’re having this conversation, then we clearly _haven’t_ made our point enough.”

“We want to be allies,” Bellamy adds quickly. “We’re not going to forget where we came from and how dangerous Earth is. If we can help Arkadia, we will. But our autonomy is non-negotiable.”

“The best thing you can do for Arkadia and for yourselves is to come home,” Pike snaps. He seems to shift gears suddenly, switching his focus from Clarke to Bellamy.

“Bellamy,” Pike says, leaning so far forward and speaking with such quiet urgency that Clarke feels like she is invading a private conversation between them, even with the mess hall crowded with their combined guards. “I know you’re a good man. You have nothing to prove to me. Don’t be prideful. Do the right thing for your people.”

Bellamy stares at him evenly.

“I do it every day,” he says.

“Why don’t we put it to a vote?” Clarke says lightly, glancing towards Bellamy. His answering smirk is small and fleeting, easy to miss if you’re not watching for it.

“I’ll spread the word,” Bellamy says, and the scrape of his chair as he stands up punctuates the end of Pike’s attempt to negotiate. Octavia sheathes her sword and hurries after Bellamy. The door slams behind them, but not before Clarke hears the beginning of a muttered argument.

“You can take your time finishing your drinks,” Clarke says mildly. “It’ll take us a few minutes to round everyone up. Luckily no one’s out hunting right now, so you’ll have an answer by nightfall. I’ll be back in a few minutes to show you the way.”

She ducks out of the mess hall before Pike can tempt her into hitting him with a chair. The guards outside look at her with rapt attention.

“How’s it going?” one asks. “What do they want?”

“They want us back,” Clarke says simply. “We’ll all vote on it. Keep them inside until Bellamy or I return.”

“You got it boss,” the other says earnestly, and Clarke smiles to herself as she walks away. _Boss_. She likes it better than princess.

She rustles through her supplies in the medbay for a few seconds before finding a piece of paper that only has a few unimportant drawings of plants on the back, some herbs she was hoping Monty could identify for her. She shoves the other supplies to the side and scrounges a pencil.

 _Mom_ , she begins, and immediately wishes she had another piece of paper. Her hand is shaking. Why is this so difficult? It’s just a letter. She takes a deep breath.

_I’m sure Mr. Pike will have his own assessment to deliver, but I want you to know that I’m doing really well here. We all are. Our village is by the ocean, and I never get sick of waking up and looking at it. It feels as big as looking out at the stars did, but every day it’s a different colour. The clouds, the stars, the moon. I could spend the rest of my life painting our view and every painting would look totally different. You could come visit one day. I could teach you to swim, show you our vegetables and Harper’s flowers. I think Raven misses you too. I wish we hadn’t left Arkadia the way we did._

Clarke stops and stares blankly at the table. She feels like she’s barely said anything important, but the small page is already half-full. How can she fit such complicated feelings within its margins? It feels like there has to be room for the anger she still carries for her dad, but also the urge to reassure her mom that she really is safe and okay, and also their affairs of state, so to speak.

“This is stupid,” Clarke mutters to herself.

_If you could see it for yourself I think you might understand more. We’re not coming home, because we are home. But we’ll always be allies._

_\- Clarke_

She folds it before she can second-guess herself and tucks it into her jacket, and then she marches out of the medbay. She runs into Bellamy just ahead of the mess hall.

“Rounded up everyone?” she asks.

“Everyone but the guards and our guests,” Bellamy says. Clarke nudges his arm.

“We’re on the same page?” she asks.

“Pretty sure,” Bellamy says. They walk into the mess hall together, breaking up a hushed argument between Pike and several of his companions, who stand up with hard faces.

“Follow us,” Clarke says, and turns around without waiting to see who moves.

The majority of the village has already gathered in the same clearing where they decided all together to build their new home. In the meantime they’ve removed the fallen tree that once occupied the center of the hollow and added a firepit. The delinquents will still gather here every night around the fire to talk and sing and dare each other to lick bugs late into the night. The last stragglers file in as Pike’s group does, and there’s hushed and excited conversation as people squeeze together on the benches to make room for their friends and speculate about the meeting. Raven crosses the clearing to stand at Clarke’s side, evidently hoping for a companion to roll her eyes with.

“Well?” Clarke asks, gesturing Pike towards the center of the clearing. “Make your case.”

“Don’t doom them to dying this winter,” Pike says to her in a low voice instead of walking forward. “Where you go, they’ll follow. Don’t make me force you.”

“I’d like to see you _try_ ,” Raven snarls, butting in to the conversation. “I dare you to come back with an army to drag us back. I’ve planted mines all over our territory. You’ll never get close to our home without our permission.”

Pike, to his credit, only looks a little alarmed. With one last lingering, disappointed gaze at Clarke, he strides off to speak to the other delinquents. Clarke watches the faces in the crowd instead of his speech. No one she can see from this angle looks sympathetic, even as Pike pounds his fist to emphasize the twin dangers of Grounders and starvation. The two things seem irreversibly intertwined to Pike, to a degree that their remote village can’t really relate to. The nearest villages to them are small and distant from the political centers of their clans. None of the Grounders really trust them, but they don’t seem bothered by their presence either.

Clarke leans in close to Raven.

“How long would it take you to build those mines?” she whispers.

“I don’t have enough hydrazine to cover our entire territory,” Raven admits. “That was a bluff.”

“I figured.”

“But I could make a bunch of weak mines in a few days. Not as powerful as the bomb we used on that bridge. Just enough to kick up some dirt, maybe hurt a foot. Do you want it on the to-do list?”

“Maybe,” Clarke says, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. She goes back to scanning the mood of the crowd, her mind still leaping from topic to topic. Starvation is Pike’s other big concern. She’ll have to ask Monty to run his numbers by her again after this meeting. But she could have sworn he seemed optimistic the last time they talked about this, and besides - they have plenty of canned rations from the bunker to close the gap; the secret advantage neither she nor Bellamy wanted to let Pike know they have.

She startles when Pike finishes and Bellamy strides forward.

“You’re free to return to Arkadia, if you want,” Bellamy says loudly, slowly turning on his heel to address the whole clearing. “I understand. We all left friends behind.”

 _Jasper_ , Clarke thinks guiltily, and wishes she thought of asking about him earlier.

“There’s no consequence to changing your mind,” Bellamy continues. “We won’t hold grudges. But we are not the weak children Pike thinks we are!”

A roar rises from one corner of the clearing, with Miller and Mbege at the center of it looking very proud of themselves, their fists pumping.

“Most of us came down here ahead of the Ark!” Bellamy shouts. “As exiles! Expendables! We didn’t need them to protect us then, and we don’t need them now. We built this village with our bare hands!”

“And my tools!” Raven calls out, and Clarke watches Pike shake his head as a ripple of laughter spreads through the crowd. He must know then, on some level, that he is not going to win.

“Clarke and I are staying here,” Bellamy says. “No matter what happens, we will be here, and we will do whatever it takes to keep you safe. If anyone wants to return to Arkadia with Pike’s group, raise your hands now.”

Silence falls over the clearing. Heads swivel, searching for any surrender. A moment later, it becomes staggeringly clear no one intends to leave today. Clarke turns to Pike.

“Thank you for the visit,” she says politely. “Are you staying the night?”

“No,” he says, his voice hard. “I’m going back to the people I can still save.”

Later, Clarke will wonder how they would have voted if Pike had come just two days later, when the coughing began.

\- four and a half years later

The first they see of Arkadia is the massive half-buried wheel of Alpha Station jutting out over the tree line. Clarke anxiously drums her fingers against the rover’s dashboard as Raven drives them onwards. Underbrush snaps under the wheels and then they’re clear of the forest. A well-worn gravel road bisects the fields of crops that surround Arkadia like the unfurling petals of a flower. Once they’re in range of the guard towers that surround the fields, Indra’s warriors slow their horses and crowd in close to the rover, so if gunfire strikes from one side at least half of them will have some shelter. Dread settles low in Clarke’s stomach as Alpha Station’s wheel grows larger and larger in the windshield and there’s no sign of aggression yet.

There’s no sign of… _anything_.

In the back, Monty and Emori have gone quiet too, perhaps sensing the same eeriness that settles over Clarke now. She peers out her window through the gaps between the trotting horses. The wind makes the leaves in the tomato plot rustle. The sprinkler systems spin silently on their axis without anything to stop them. Not a single person is visible in the fields. Indra leans over on her horse to rap on the rover’s roof and Raven reluctantly slows, still about a hundred meters away from the massive gates at the end of the road.

Under Pike’s leadership Arkadia grew to resemble a fortress. The electric fence that marked the settlement’s inner boundary remains, the first line of defence against any unwanted approach, but an inner wall of wood and scrap metal rises tall within it. The gates Clarke and Bellamy led their exodus out of have been battered and reforged into stronger and heavier versions of themselves. The scars from the last war are still etched into the metal frame, and though they could have been buffed out Clarke thinks they were left intentionally. To tell outsiders that a storm of blades scraped against Arkadia’s front door before, and they’re still standing.

But there’s no movement from the guard towers on either side.

Clarke lets out a frustrated breath and unlatches the passenger door. Raven protests and Emori’s hand grasps weakly at the back of her shirt as she lets herself drop to the ground. The subtle change her growing belly has had on her balance makes her stumble slightly on impact. She grabs the door with one hand and her stomach with the other and centers herself. She drops the one on her stomach immediately as one of Indra’s warriors looks over. 

“Hey!”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Indra calls out to Clarke as she begins to walk towards the gates with a chorus of yells behind her. Clarke turns around with an innocent expression but keeps walking backwards.

“I thought you wanted answers!” she calls back, spreading her arms wide. She sees Bellamy look up at the sky for a moment as if he’s praying for patience, before he slides off the horse he’s been assigned to and runs to keep up. Indra signals to her warriors and two of them follow quickly, their knuckles white on the hilts of their weapons.

Clarke breathes easier once Bellamy’s walking in step next to her. He touches her back so fleetingly it could be an accident if she knows him so well. She chances a glance at him out of the corner of her vision and it’s a relief even though she knows he’s unharmed but for the faint sunburn on his cheekbones, and that he’s been only a few meters away from the rover all day. Those few meters of separation seem far greater than they are. She’s just used to having him so close she could reach out, so close that they can make plans just with microexpressions.

“How are you feeling?” he asks lowly. The sound of gravel crunching under their feet is just loud enough to shield their voices.

“Fine,” she says pointedly. “Considering I haven’t been allowed to take any shifts on a horse.”

“You’re welcome for that,” Bellamy says, avoiding the bait. “I think I’ve lost all the skin on my thighs.”

Despite her lingering irritation over his protectiveness, Clarke’s lips twitch upwards.

“I’ll kiss them better when all this is over,” she says. She jerks her head towards the unmanned guard towers. “What do you think is wrong?”

“Maybe they have a secret bunker to retreat to, too?” Bellamy asks, but she can tell from his voice that he doesn’t believe it, and he’s worried too.

They’ve just stepped into the gate’s shadow - and in the baking heat of a summer afternoon, the temperature difference in the shade is a noticeable and welcome relief - when they hear footsteps from the guard tower on the left. Bellamy pushes Clarke behind him as the figure in white reaches the top and stands at the window. Clarke hears Indra’s gasp of shock just behind her. One of her warriors curses involuntarily, and Clarke can’t really blame him for it. Not when the figure on the tower is wearing a hazmat suit looted from Mount Weather. She swallows back the fear that still comes six years later. For a moment Arkadia fades away. Clarke sees canisters of gas landing among the clearing strewn with bones. The white fog that had blanketed everything and driven her surviving delinquents to their knees with racking coughs. The red targeting lasers that painted the air, and the faceless white suits that followed behind. She blinks the memory away and raises her hand to gently push a raised bow down.

The white figure sets several items on the railing and shakes a bottle at Clarke. They’re too far apart for her to read the writing but she recognizes the label. Disinfectant. Clarke nods, and the figure pours some into a rag before wiping down… a handheld radio. She walks around Bellamy, distantly aware that he follows just behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder. The figure in the hazmat suit puts the radio into a bucket and lowers it down on a rope, inch by agonizing inch.

“Bad sign,” Bellamy says quietly. There are surgical gloves in the bucket too. Clarke puts those on first and then picks up the radio. It clicks in her hand. There’s only one person she knows who is this precise.

“Hi mom,” Clarke says, her eyes watering as she looks up at the figure. Five years. She is only meters away from her mother for the first time in five years, and she can't even see her face. After everything with Pike, both she and Abby refused to be the first to cave and visit. Now that stubborn pride feels childish and shameful. "Long time no see."

“Hello Clarke,” Abby says, her voice distant and muffled. It's no different from her voice on Raven's relay, but it still makes the back of Clarke's throat burn. “Any chance your escort will give us some privacy?”

Clarke raises an eyebrow at Indra and her warriors. Indra shakes her head.

“Mom, we have a bad situation,” she says with a heavy sigh. “There’s - “

“There’s nothing we can do to help you right now,” Abby says. “I’m so sorry Clarke. It's not safe for you to come in. Whatever troubles your outpost is having, you’re on your own. Whatever viral infection you fought in your first winter away came to us now, and it’s worse. I can’t spare any people.”

Clarke’s throat tightens with fear. Honestly, part of her suspected something like this when she saw the hazmat suit. But hearing it said aloud is worse. Clarke eyes Indra and desperately wishes their Trikru captors weren’t listening in on this conversation.

“Mom,” she says desperately. “We’re not the ones in trouble. You are.”

“What?”

Bellamy leans over her shoulder. “The Commander is marching her combined army on Arkadia, Chancellor. And unless you can prove that Skaikru wasn’t involved in the destruction of a Shallow Valley village, they’re going to hold you responsible.”

“Indra says strangers came in a ship from the sky,” Clarke adds. “We’re the prime suspects.”

Silence from Abby’s end. She’s still standing there, the hazmat suit perfectly still and hiding her face from them. Clarke wonders if she’s taking time to be afraid or she’s already moved into Councilwoman mode.

“I don’t understand how there could be another ship,” Abby says urgently. “The Ark was destroyed, no one could have survived up there all this time. But Indra, it couldn’t have been us. I - I’d show you my medbay, if it didn’t pose a danger to you. The majority of Arkadia can barely stand up straight right now. There are barely a handful of us left healthy trying to manage everything. We are in no condition to attack anyone.” _Or to defend ourselves._ The implication sinks in and Clarke has to lean heavily against Bellamy to keep herself up as her knees threaten to give out. He wraps an arm around her waist and she feels his fingers digging into her hip, just as desperate to seek support from her as she is from him.

Indra has been their friend, sometimes, when their loyalties didn’t pull them apart, but the biggest reason she captured Clarke and the others - the biggest reason she wants to stop another war between their people - is to prevent Trikru deaths. Indra’s face is impassive at Abby’s news. Unreadable. Clarke stares at her, trying to find a crack, a way in, but all she can do is desperately pray that Indra will not consider Arkadia being too weak to fight back a solution.

After what seems like an eternity, Indra gestures for Clarke to raise the radio.

“I am not the one you need to convince,” Indra says in a perfectly neutral voice. _No_ , Clarke thinks with a sudden wave of the complicated emotions that always rise up in her when she thinks of Lexa. _It’s her._ Indra hesitates before speaking into the radio again. “How is Marcus?”

“Hasn’t been lucid in a few days,” Abby says, with a hitch in her voice and a sudden cut to the audio that makes Clarke think she cut herself off to hide a sob. She takes a deep breath.

“Then it’s up to us to find out where that ship came from, isn’t it?” she says loudly, looking back and forth between Bellamy and Indra. To Bellamy, it’s an apology that they won’t be returning to their people, to their home. That she’s running straight into more danger. To Indra it’s a challenge. To keep going. She holds her gaze.

“We keep going until we have avenged the valley,” Indra says, and Clarke hopes her relief doesn’t show as plainly on her face as she feels it. Indra nods to her warriors, and the three of them begin to trek back up the gravel road with only one lingering, suspicious look at the shut gates.

“Stay safe,” Clarke says to the radio. “I’m glad you have hazmat suits. I would have _killed_ for one back then.”

"I wish I could hold you," Abby laments. "Clarke, I haven't been - I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I drove you away. And now you're going to go stop another war, and I can't even say goodbye? How many times have I had to watch my child run headfirst into danger without me?”

“Not as often as I’ve had to watch her,” Bellamy mutters, and Clarke aims a half-hearted kick at his shins that he dodges nimbly.

“You’re needed here,” Clarke says resolutely. She hesitates, then. “We’ll do our best. But you should try to get as many people well enough to fight as soon as you can. Send a message to New Rome once the connection is back online, Harper might have some ideas.” She lets out a shaky breath, wondering if she should say more, if she should tell her mother she might be a grandmother soon, but - no. In case it all goes wrong, better for her not to have more to mourn. “Goodbye mom.”

“Goodbye, Clarke. May we meet again.”

Clarke sets the radio back in the bucket and strips off her sterile gloves. She and Bellamy walk back to the rover without looking back. The backs of her knuckles brush against Bellamy’s, and he grabs her hand even though everyone can see them. His grip is nearly painfully tight. Not tight enough.

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“No you’re not,” he says, but he doesn’t sound angry. Just tired and stressed, like they always used to be. When they get home - if they get home - Clarke is going to treasure the peace of their village so much more. They worked so hard for it.

“I know it’s dangerous,” Clarke continues. “But there’s no other choice.”

Bellamy stops in his tracks just before the rover. He raises their hands and uncurls her fingers. His breath spills out over her palm a split second before he kisses the center of it.

“It’s one of the reasons I love you,” he says quietly, tucking her hand against his cheek. “One of many.” Clarke stares at her hand.

“That was stupid,” she says. “Even though she sterilized the radio I might still have picked something up - “

The fond warmth fades from Bellamy’s dark eyes.

“Get in the goddamn rover, Clarke,” he says. But he helps her up and gives her a quick, desperate kiss before Raven starts the engine, so she knows he hasn’t completely had it with her. Clarke’s lips tingle until Arkadia fades from the rearview mirror, and then the magnitude of their mission really sinks in and she can’t feel anything besides fear.

\- four and a half years earlier

It takes Clarke a few days to realize that the cough and the nausea are related. At first she and Bellamy assume the kids with the latter just had some spoiled food. The medbay is only meant to hold a few overnight, and she gives those spots to the ones who come to her with a rattling, wet cough that sounds like it comes from deep in their lungs. The nauseated ones are shooed back to their bunks in the longhouse to rest, and by the time the symptoms begin to overlap a few days later, it’s far too late for an effective quarantine - and they wouldn’t have had enough room, anyway.

Clarke still tries.

Bellamy doesn’t let her sleep in their room in the back of the medbay, after they figure it out. She manages to squeeze a few more into her room. Monty makes massive batches of broth using century-old chicken stock they raided from that bunker they found, leaving Clarke to spend her days trying to coax her patients into taking small sips and trying to rest.

She takes a bunk in the longhouse, and barely sleeps. Ever since the handful of months she spent on her own after Mount Weather, Clarke sleeps lightly, waking at every noise. In the longhouse every giggle through the thin partitions and creak of wooden floorboards when someone wakes up thirsty makes her shudder awake. When she sleeps through the night, she usually doesn’t remember her nightmares. When she wakes up in the dark, they’re harder to shake off. The circles under her eyes get darker and darker.

Murphy shows up roughly a week into this bullshit - or rather, the girl with the tattoo shows up dragging his shivering body in a wagon that’s missing a wheel. Snow is already dusting the ground. If she’d waited any longer it’d be too tall for the wagon to squeak over. The girl doesn’t flinch from the guns pointed at her. Just raises her chin stubbornly and says she’s heard they have a doctor.

“I don’t know if I like this,” Bellamy tells her, his arms crossed over his chest and his shoulders hunched up. He’s been keeping his distance from Clarke, since it’s probably only a matter of time before she gets sick, and they need at least one of them to stay standing. But the exhaustion is getting to him too, and the yearning to step closer and wrap her arms around his waist is so powerful that Clarke feels it like a physical ache in her stomach. Or that might just be the onset of symptoms.

“What’s the worst he’s gonna do?” Clarke mutters to him. “Get everyone sick with a mysterious and debilitating illness again?”

They toss him in with the others in the medbay. The act of mercy pays off - the grounder girl, Emori, has seen this before. Lived through it as a child. She remains sharp and distrustful even as she shadows Clarke on her rounds between the sick and offers advice. On her word, Monty makes a batch of tea that smells and tastes so awful it’s a miracle anyone can keep it down when they’re already so nauseauted, but somehow it works. Clarke lasts long enough to sketch the new plant into her notes before she finally collapses.

Murphy is the first person Emori checks on when Clarke joins the ranks of the sick, the first one she brings food and that awful tea to every hour. Clarke is the second. Everyone else seems to fall on the next tier of her priorities.

Clarke wakes a few times to the sensation of a warm and broad hand winding through her sweat-slicked hair. When she opens her eyes, the blurry face that swims above her looks a lot like Bellamy’s. Her throat hurts too much to tell him to fuck off and stay healthy, and she doesn’t stay awake long enough to try much.

The sickness passes for most of them eventually, including Clarke. But it lingers so long that by the time Clarke is finally stepping back outside with a clear head, the snow is already halfway up to her knees, and they’ve lost a bunch of their vegetables to frost because there weren’t enough people strong enough to finish the harvest. Bellamy says it’s not the end of the world for them, not yet. They have plenty of canned rations from the bunker, easily enough to last them through this winter. But after this winter there will be another, and another, and another. If things go right - and they never do - there will be generations of Skaikru enduring the winter here, and those canned rations are a finite resource they’re supposed to save for emergencies. They won’t last if every winter counts as an emergency.

“We’ll do better next year,” Harper says fiercely, rubbing Clarke’s back as she sobs in a dark corner of the longhouse.

“What if Pike was right?” Clarke asks in a trembling voice. “What if I’ve doomed everyone?”

“You haven’t,” Harper says. “I’d let you know if you did.”

She makes Clarke share her bunk that night, and it probably saves her life. They wake up before dawn to the heavy scent of smoke.

Clarke thinks she’s dreaming at first. Most of her nightmares feature Mount Weather’s dining room, but the ring of fire makes frequent appearances too, and in them sometimes she switches places with Bellamy and burns until dawn. But the smoke in her dreams doesn’t make her gasp like this, doesn’t make her throat close up. Clarke’s eyes are swollen from crying herself to sleep. She rubs at them and blinks, trying to make the orange flickers in her vision less blurry.

“Holy shit,” Harper says, and Clarke absently thinks it’s strange that she’s here. She’s usually alone in her dreams. Even when Bellamy shows up in them he is gray and formless and just out of reach. Harper’s hand shaking her shoulder feels unnaturally real. “Clarke, snap out of it. Come on. Where the fuck did you put your shoes?”

“By my hammock,” Clarke murmurs. Since the quarantine she’s been usually sleeping at the other end of the longhouse, near Bellamy. That’s where all her things are. Harper swears lowly.

“Yeah, you’re not getting those back,” Harper says. Clarke’s vision slowly gets clearer as Harper forces her to stand, and she instinctively looks to the other side of the longhouse, where Bellamy should be. She doesn’t understand the wall of fire in her way. There are five mud fireplaces spaced evenly along the back of the longhouse, but the second-last one is too bright to look at. The Ark had sun blinds that would automatically lower over the windows when their transit brought them in view of the sun so no one burned their retinas sun-gazing, and Clarke has the funny feeling that they’re broken, that she shouldn’t be staring.

It’s only the screaming that makes her finally wake up and understand. The sound snaps to her attention like a rubber band released and suddenly she’s reeling as the cries of delinquents and the roar of burning wood reaches her ears. The longhouse creaks ominously and a moment later one of the ceiling beams collapses, pulling dried thatch and support struts down with it. Sparks burst from the impact with the floor, flying outwards like a swarm of angry, fire-bright wasps fleeing a kicked nest. Several sting the arm that Clarke throws up to shield her face, but she doesn’t register the pain, too focused on the empty cot crushed under the burning beam. The fire’s heat is so powerful that the snow that came in with the ceiling’s collapse evaporates in seconds, and then the thatched grass catches fire and blazes.

A solid arm wraps around Clarke’s waist as she starts forward and jerks her backwards, knocking the air out of her. She coughs up smoke and fights against the hold. She recognizes the grunt when one of her elbows connects. Miller.

“Stop fighting, dammit,” he tells her.

“Bellamy,” Clarke gasps.

“Running straight into the fire isn’t going to help him,” Miller snaps, and another violent coughing fit makes Clarke bend in two, helpless as her lungs try to wring themselves out. Miller takes the opportunity to throw her over his shoulder and carry her through the open door. Outside the night is warped and unnatural, the fire’s heat eclipsing winter and making everything ripple. The snow Miller drops her socked feet into glows yellow-orange and nothing makes sense. She’s swarmed by delinquents instantly, their faces cast into deep and frightening shadows by the flickering fire, their hands reaching out to touch her arms and shoulders like they’re reassuring themselves she’s real. It’s almost worse than her nightmares.

She shakes them off and stumbles back towards the sun, towards the other end of the longhouse where Miller’s dad and several delinquents are hacking at the wall with axes, trying to carve a path through the wood. They built the longhouse’s outer walls with thick trunks to slow down any Grounder attackers who might want to break through them, and now that decision is punishing them. The snow at their feet is scattered with splinters that don’t mean anything.

“Who’s inside?” Clarke asks, whirling around to the crowd of faces that follow her. “How many?”

“Seventy-three of us outside,” Harper says breathlessly, shoving her way to the front of the crowd. “But I don’t know if anyone’s still asleep in the other cabins!”

“Figure it out,” Clarke all but growls, and several delinquents turn tail and run for the cabins to do a headcount.

“Mel is still inside!” Bree wails from the back.

“And Thom!”

Salt stings Clarke’s eye. She wipes away the sweat on her forehead with her sleeve. She’s sweating from the ankle-up, every stone-age instinct in her telling her to get away from the massive fire. Her feet are the only point of cold on her body, her socks now soaked through with snow, and focusing on the sharp bite of cold clears her mind. The boys chopping at the wall aren’t going to get through fast enough. The longhouse groans again and she hears another crash from inside as more of the ceiling collapses. The shower of sparks shoots upwards like a geyser, burning against a purple-gray sky and drifting down to the gathered delinquents.

_Can you wish on this?_

Clarke makes her decision. She takes a deep breath of air and runs for the longhouse’s open door, chased by a chorus of alarmed cries. She gets all the way to the doorstep before she’s tackled to the ground.

“Let me go!” Clarke yells, scrambling to her feet only to be grabbed again. Monty on one side, Harper on the other. She shakes them off momentarily and more hands clutch at her. Someone puts her in an arm bar, using the painful angle to force her to the ground, but they’re trying not to hurt her and the grip on her wrist isn’t tight enough. Bellamy would yell at them for that. He always says that if you’re going to attack, you should mean it. She has to get to Bellamy. She wrenches free and surges up, headbutting the first person in her way. She hears the crack in her nose before she feels the pain, like thunder follows ponderously after lightning. Murphy stumbles backwards with a groan, holding onto his jaw, and someone throws their entire weight into Clarke, knocking her down and nearly crushing her.

“Let her breathe,” someone says distantly. “You’re squishing her.”

“She broke her nose! I’m not letting her up until she’s done being crazy.”

_Bellamy’s still in there._

“Let her up,” a hard voice says. Raven.

“I will never forgive you,” Clarke gasps, not sure if anyone hears her. Hands drag her into a seating position and Raven grabs her chin.

“You idiot,” Raven hisses. She hasn’t had time to put her hair up and for some reason seeing it draped over her shoulders is one of the most jarring parts of this nightmare experience. Clarke shakes, and Raven’s fingers dig painfully into her jaw. She tastes iron as the blood from her nose dribbles past her lip. “You do _not_ get to break down yet.”

“He’s still inside,” Clarke snarls. The heat coming out of the open doorway is unbearable. Every second they keep her here is another knife shoved into her.

“Which means we need you here,” Raven says. How can she be so cold? Tears blur Clarke’s vision, and she realizes the shaking is just her sobbing. “We can’t lose you both.”

“Fuck you,” Clarke says, and jerks her head back. Whatever the back of her head connects with is harder than a nose. A jaw, maybe. She hears a muffled cry of pain and the hands keeping her arms behind her back let go. Raven struggles to stand up when she’s kneeling on a good day. Now, with her brace only half-buckled in hurry, she doesn’t have a chance to get up first. Clarke darts around her and screams in frustration when she’s grabbed _again_. “Bellamy! _Bellamy!”_

“Clarke, please!” Monty says, his face swimming in her vision through tears. All the people she thought were friends are holding her back. Miller, Raven, Monty. Harper spitting blood into the snow. Even Murphy, for some reason.

“Bellamy!” Clarke screams. “Let me the _hell_ go. _Bellamy!”_

“I think he’s gone, Clarke,” Murphy says quietly.

“Just like you wanted,” Clarke spits, and she doesn’t know if Murphy flinches from her words or the flecks of blood that accompany them. She gives a wordless, animalistic scream of despair when her attempts to unbalance one of her captors - just one, she just needs a _chance_ \- are completely fruitless. There’s too many of them, and her limbs are heavy with exhaustion. She cranes her neck to bite Raven’s arm and misses, slamming her nose instead. The pain makes her black out for a moment. She feels her knees buckle, feels her feet dragging and leaving furrows in the snow, but for a moment she can’t do anything but struggle to breathe through her mouth, and every smoke-filled breath scrapes down her throat. It feels like it’ll never go away. It feels right. Every breath she takes that Bellamy doesn’t take with her should hurt.

When the throbbing in her face recedes just enough that her vision returns, they’ve dragged her away from the doorway. The sky is as pink as raw skin. The longhouse is shooting flames out of every window, and the delinquents are rolling snowballs and piling them against the sides of the nearest cabins. It feels like they’re giving up.

“Bellamy!” she screams, in anger this time. They called her the Commander of Death. What’s the point of that if she can’t command him to come back to her?

She thinks she’s dreaming again when the figures stumble out of the doorway. They both collapse to their knees just past the doorway, coughing into the rags clutched to their faces. The hands holding Clarke down let go and run to help. Bellamy makes them take the smaller figure he dragged out, and lets himself roll over in the snow, his face looking upwards at the sky just as it begins to snow gently. Clarke crawls because she doesn’t think she can walk. She doesn’t think he’s real until she slaps his chest.

Bellamy coughs weakly. His eyes are bright-red from the smoke, and the angry red burn on his shoulder turns her stomach. She packs the snow in closer to it and he makes a soft sound of pain. Clarke starts crying again at the sound of it.

“I hate you,” she tells him, just before bending down and kissing him fiercely. His lips are dry and chapped and everything tastes like smoke and iron but it only takes him a second to respond, winding his hand into her hair and holding her close. His other arm finds her waist and pulls her flush against his side. Snow seeps through her last dry layers. Clarke’s nose is too clogged with blood for her to breathe, but she’s not about to stop kissing Bellamy just for air. She’s dizzy and light-headed before Bellamy realizes she’s not breathing and lets her go.

“Gross,” Bellamy murmurs, dragging her attention back to him. “You’re dripping blood on me.”

She wheezes out a half-laugh and gradually becomes aware they have an audience.

The delinquents stand around them in a loose semi-circle, many of them openly weeping or staring at the burning longhouse with helpless despair. _It was a mistake to come here_ , Clarke thinks as ash and snow settles in their hair. _To think we could do this on our own._

"What do we do now?" Bree asks, her voice wavering, her eyes glowing orange and bright with the reflection of the flames. 

"I don't know," Clarke mumbles. She doesn't think she's ever felt more helpless in her life. She turns to look at the fire with the rest of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's my favourite first kiss dialogue I've ever written. :D I might have a thing for extremely non-traditional milestones. Thank you for reading this far, I know this chapter was absurdly long! If you don't know what to comment, I'm especially interested in things like a) if you guessed Clarke's pregnancy before it was revealed at the end of chapter 1, b) any lines that jumped out at you as suspicious possible foreshadowing, c) all your theories for what happens in the five year gap between the timelines. Constructive criticism on my foreshadowing very appreciated! 
> 
> Be safe, love you~


	3. when a god grieves, it means destroying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CONTENT WARNINGS:** description of injuries and the field medicine used to treat them, murder, and the care of dead bodies. Also, Clarke has a short panic attack and totally doesn't notice. Remember how at the start of the story I warned you that this fic would have ruthless!Clarke? This chapter is why - it's all uphill from here.
> 
> If you're on desktop, you can hover over Trigedasleng for English translations. If you're on mobile you have to click on them for the translations to appear, and it might make your screen jump around a bit, sorry! You can also find them in the end notes but tbh most of them should be obvious in context. I used this [unofficial dictionary](https://trigedasleng.net/translations) and translations are not literal ie Clarke's trigedasleng is that of an inexperienced speaker.

#

  
\- four and a half years later

A summer thunderstorm darkens the sky just before their mismatched group reaches the Trikru border, and in the last hour their progress slows to a crawl. Rain pours down so heavily that the trees can’t do anything to shelter them from it, and the forest becomes shrouded in a choking mist that even the rover’s headlights can’t penetrate. Flashes of lightning illuminate Indra’s warriors, and they look miserable, huddled as they are on their horses with their hoods pulled up as a weak measure against the downpour. The sound of the windshield wipers struggling to keep up with the flood of water is so rhythmic that it puts Clarke in an oddly meditative state. The world outside the rover seems false to her, somehow. The storm; a dream.

They stop in a Trikru border town. The rover’s headlights illuminate a young woman who doesn’t seem to notice the water plastering her long hair to the sides of her head. She notches an arrow to her bow and draws it back, leveling it at the windshield’s height. Indra dismounts from her horse and strides forward to negotiate. Clarke thinks Mount Weather built the rovers to withstand Grounder fire but it’s still a little unnerving to be staring her down. Raven slumps lower in her seat and glares. 

“Fucking Grounders,” she mutters. 

“Hey,” Emori says mildly. Clarke keeps watching through the windshield. The woman kind of reminds her of Octavia, and the resemblance leaves a bittersweet taste in her mouth.

“Not you,” Raven snaps. “You don’t start every single goddamn conversation by threatening murder.”

“I did hold a knife to Murphy’s throat the first time I ever met him,” Emori replies thoughtfully. Another figure approaches Indra and the woman with the arrow drawn. His steps are slow and deliberate, his hands held up to show that he’s unarmed. Clarke recognizes that posture and is not impressed. 

“That’s different, that’s Murphy,” Raven says, the smallest of smiles gracing her lips. 

Clarke unlatches her door and drops out of the rover. She’s drenched before her feet hit the mud below. She slams the door behind her and marches forward, head held high as water streams down the planes of her face and the back of her neck. It’d be less pleasant if the water were cold but it’s strikingly warm. It’s hard to tell if Bellamy or the girl with the bow is scowling at her more. 

“ _Wanheda,_ ” the girl snarls. Six years later, the terrible name still makes Clarke draw in a sharp, pained breath. She doesn’t understand most of the rapid-fire words the girl says to Indra next, but she can catch _Skaikru,_ and _murderer_. She raises her palms up to the thunderous sky. 

“,” Clarke says clumsily. She remembers the words for healer and friend but can’t figure out how to make the grammar work. Plus, she thinks she might actually get shot if she suggests they can be friends while the arrow is drawn back.

“,” Indra corrects, and Clarke gives her a despairing look. 

The girl relaxes the bowstring and lowers her weapon, but Clarke thinks this might have more to do with her arm getting tired than any camaraderie inspired by her rusty Trigedasleng. The girl spits at her feet and Clarke grabs Bellamy’s wrist tightly, just in case. He doesn’t have the temper he used to, but he still gets testy when the Grounders get so blatantly disrespectful. Clarke can nod in the right places and be polite and know the act is separate from herself. Bellamy remembers being looked down on all those years on the Ark and doesn’t want to be powerless again.

“,” the girl mutters darkly, and stalks off. Rain falls unceasingly in the footsteps she leaves behind in the mud.

“There are Shallow Valley survivors in this village,” Indra tells them. “The memories of the attack are fresh.”

“So they can tell us what we’re up against,” Bellamy says lowly. “If they stop threatening us long enough for us to get any questions out.”

“They are wise enough to recognize the aid more hands can give,” Indra says. “But for tonight, at least, your people should expect to sleep in your car.”

Clarke and Bellamy both wince. Six people. A tight squeeze, but one that might be improved if they have someone sitting upright on watch. Clarke’s gaze drifts sideways to an elongated cabin at the edge of the mist-shrouded village that looks haphazardly-built. The wooden frame around the curtained door looks new and green. She nods at it. 

“That’s where the survivors are, right?” she asks, and starts off without waiting for an answer. Bellamy follows stubbornly. Clarke halts suddenly on the doorstep where the roof juts out and provides some shelter from the downpour. 

“I know you want to keep me safe,” she says quietly. “But I can do good here, healing, and you can do good finding the leader of this village and being charming and having better grammar than I do.”

Bellamy cups her cheek carefully and doesn’t say anything for a moment. The roof shields them from the worst of the rain but Clarke still feels it splashing up on her feet, still feels the mist damp against her bare face. Bellamy rubs his thumb against the mole above her lip, looking conflicted.

“I know,” he says, and then his hand drops and he starts shrugging out of his jacket - the one he used to wear as an Arkadian guard, now old and worn and patched in so many places, especially where they removed the Ark’s emblems. 

“What are you doing?” Clarke asks as he shakes off the rain and hands it to her. 

“Helping you keep a secret,” he says, and nods towards her abdomen. Clarke looks down and realizes that the rain has plastered her loose-fitting top to the curve of her stomach. The billowing fabric gave her enough plausible deniability when she was dry, but she’s four months along and the way the material is clinging to her skin will raise some suspicion. They’ve had this argument so many times and Clarke can’t help but see the jacket as an olive branch. A compromise to delay the moment they’ll have to make a decision for good about how far they’ll go to hide their child. To protect them.

“Shit,” she says. “Thank you.” The jacket’s built in armour makes it sit weirdly on her shoulders and she’s sure she looks ridiculous in it, but once it’s zipped up halfway the curve of her stomach is safe and hidden. The inside lining is warm and soothing and she suddenly feels safer than she has since they left home several days ago to look for the faulty connection to Arkadia. She smiles at Bellamy and embraces the calm that settles over her despite everything stacked against them. “Eyes sharp,” she jokes, and he rolls his eyes. 

“Shut up,” he murmurs, and leans in to kiss her, hard and bruising, one hand tangled in her wet hair. A flash of lightning makes the world behind her eyelids bright white for a split second but she keeps her eyes screwed shut, clinging to the dream. Bellamy pulls away to look at her and can’t resist returning for one more gentle peck. He gives her a nod and steps out into the rain, one hand nervously tapping at his hip where his gun should be. Clarke watches his broad shoulders vanish into the fog and shadows. She takes a deep breath to steady herself and smiles again when she smells Bellamy on his jacket. She wrings out her soaked hair and goes inside.

Heads turn inside the hastily-constructed shelter as soon as Clarke steps in. Even wet, her hair is still unmistakably golden, and every blonde young woman wearing a Skaikru jacket is ripe for suspicion. Even Harper has faced fear and pointed fingers at some negotiations and trading missions.

“ _Wanheda!”_ a voice cries out, and the refugees on the cots nearest to the door curl up or scoot backwards to press themselves against the walls, staring at her with wide eyes.

“,” Clarke says carefully. _Please. Let me help._

Slowly, one elderly man raises his hand and points towards the back of the cabin. By the light of the lanterns hung up in the roof’s peak, Clarke sees a familiar face. 

“Hey, Nyko,” she says, unable to resist a weak smile. He does not smile back, but he beckons her closer to the body he’s kneeled by. 

“You may as well help, if you’re here,” he says gruffly, gesturing at a still body. “I have some experience digging Skaikru bullets out of my people, but I expect you have more.”

Clarke knows he’s referring to Hakeldama, but she wasn’t there, and decides that’s not the part that’s important to correct. 

“It wasn’t Skaikru,” she says fiercely, but when Nyko draws back a bloody compress and shows her the wound, it’s impossible to deny. Bullets. Clarke pushes aside the pain and the fear and rolls up the sleeves of Bellamy’s jacket. Emori appears a moment later with her first aid kit, and Clarke spares a glance at the sling Emori’s wearing her deformed arm in. Her hand is hidden underneath several layers of gauze, and if Clarke had to guess there’s a knife hidden in there too. “Smart,” she murmurs to Emori. Disguising her mutation as an injury should keep any zealot from giving her trouble. 

“Raven did it,” Emori says quickly. She’s loathe to accept any compliments that could otherwise go to Raven’s work, even when Raven herself is insisting she’s done well.

“Are you good to lend a hand?” Clarke asks, and though Emori wrinkles her nose at the smell of blood, she settles in on her other side to pass her and Nyko tools as they need them. 

The conditions aren’t as good as the medical ward in the bunker, and Clarke finds herself wishing they had better light and more antiseptic. Tending wounds by lamplight in a cramped cabin with the endless drum of rain echoing off the corrugated metal roof reminds her, oddly, of the dropship days. For a moment she blinks and Finn Collins is on the cot in front of her instead of a different long-haired boy. She blinks again and his ghost is back where it belongs in the past. 

Several hours later Nyko murmurs to her that they’ve done what they can for the night, and to try to grab some rest. Emori slunk off after they no longer needed her aid to reassure some of the lesser wounded survivors, and the faint sound of conversation and laughter as they relaxed with her made comforting white noise. As long as they keep thinking that’s a sling around her arm, they’ll trust her and the crescent-shaped tattoo around her eye far more than they’ll trust any sky-born delinquent, and Clarke spares a moment to thank the universe that she came along on this mission. Emori might make all the difference.

She brushes up against Clarke as she’s washing blood off her hands. Emori leans casually against the wall and tries to cross her arms before remembering the sling. 

“There’s a girl by the door who said that joking around after she saw her parents killed is an insult to their memory,” Emori murmurs to her. Clarke’s muscles freeze for a moment before she remembers to keep scrubbing. 

“You think she saw something?” she says. Something. Anything, any hint or lead that could absolve Arkadia of the village’s slaughter. 

“Yeah,” Emori says. “But my approach isn’t gonna work.” Her eyes are as sharp as the end of one of her knives. In her dark irises Clarke can see the reflection of one of the oil lamps hung from the ceiling swinging faintly in someone’s wake. “She’s angry. She doesn’t want comfort. She’ll want Wanheda.”

“Maybe,” Clarke says noncommittally. Everyone thinks they want Wanheda on their side until they meet her.

Still, she straightens her shoulders and goes to the girl. She’s twelve or thirteen years old maybe, with dark and matted hair. She glares at Clarke as she approaches with eyes that look far older than the rest of her, and even when Clarke kneels at the side of her cot, she doesn’t uncurl herself from the tight ball. She smells of blood and rot, and it’s not like Nyko to not take care of someone. She’s not allowing herself be taken care of. 

“You’re Wanheda,” the girl says in a low and hoarse voice. 

“Sometimes,” Clarke concedes. “Usually my name is Clarke.” She waits for the girl to give her name. It doesn’t come.

“Why are you here?” she asks instead. 

“To heal, and to find out who did this to your people,” Clarke says. 

“They came from the sky,” the girl says, a challenge in the fire of her eyes and the stubborn set of her jaw. Emori is right. The girl is filled to the brim with an anger so potent Clarke can almost see her shaking with it. “When Maman told them this was our land, they killed us with guns. Everyone is saying they are Skaikru.”

“I don’t think they were,” Clarke answers. “But with your help, I might be able to find out the truth.” The girl falls silent and stares at her with sullen, half-lidded eyes. Clarke wonders if she’s been sleeping at all, with her own grief and the sobs and moans of the other survivors in the cabin and the unceasing staccato of rain on the roof. “You’re safe now - “ Clarke tries to say, and the girl’s face twists with grief. 

“My parents are dead,” she snarls. “I will never be safe again.”

“You will,” Clarke tries to promise, and the grief she’s been carrying with her for nearly seven years now rears its head. “When my father died, I thought there would never be justice in the world again. It still hurts. It never stops hurting. But you will be safe and happy again.”

The girl stares at her with wild eyes. 

“No,” she says distantly, and the fire fades and is replaced by hollow disbelief. “It’s not the same. You don’t understand.”

And the girl grimaces as she rolls over and curls back into a tight, trembling ball facing away from Clarke. She moves stiffly, carefully, clearly hiding injuries under her torn and bulky clothing, but Clarke recognizes that she won’t tolerate her intrusion any further today. Emori was right. She doesn’t want comfort. She wants a version of Clarke she thought she’d be able to lay to rest by now.

Clarke stands up slowly, one hand instinctively reaching for her stomach to cradle the new and foreign weight there. She looks down at the girl’s small frame for another moment and turns away.

\- four and a half years earlier

It takes three long, tense days for the fire in the longhouse to die down. In that time the delinquents sleep in shifts, crowded into the smaller cabins under the blankets they have left, while the rest roll small snowballs and throw them through the windows and collapsed roof. At first it seems futile, all their hard work going up in smoke if not steam. But eventually they must get the wood damp enough to stop it from burning further.

Clarke walks through the ruins on the third day. The floor has burned away in places and sometimes her feet sink into pebbles and ash. The empty longhouse feels eerie and hostile to her. She sifts listlessly through the remains of a stool. A singed sleeve with the logo of the Brazilian Space Agency is all that remains of a shirt. One of the kids who died was from Mecha Station, Clarke thinks distantly. She pockets the sleeve, thinking it should go to his gravestone. Not much else is salvageable. Clarke stands in the center of the destroyed longhouse and stares at the scorch marks for a while. The taste in her mouth reminds her of the ring of fire again. 

Wood creaks behind her. She turns to find Lincoln, his face sad and withdrawn. Clarke makes an effort to smile. Lincoln still feels separate from the rest of the village sometimes, like he's pulling away just as they're taking him in. Octavia leaps at every chance to leave the safety of the walls, and the more feral she gets, the more he seems to retreat into himself, like there's only so much life to share between them. 

"The wood pile is filled with green pine," Lincoln tells Clarke quietly. When her face remains politely puzzled, his lips twitch into the ghost of a wry smile. "The sap catches fire quickly. We tell our children not to burn it indoors. I... I didn't think of warning you."

Grief washes over Clarke.

"No," she says fiercely. "No, this was not your fault."

_It was mine. I never should have brought them here. Never should have been so arrogant to think I could keep everyone alive._

"I am sorry," Lincoln says as though he hasn't heard her. He stares hard at the small fires still smouldering in the corners.

"It wasn't your fault Lincoln," Clarke says, and to her embarrassment she begins to cry. "You're my people. You're all my responsibility."

Lincoln opens his arm and Clarke leans in, allowing herself just a single moment of comfort as she furiously wipes away tears. Then she fixes him with a hard stare.

"It _wasn't,_ " she says again. Lincoln smiles that same humourless smile. 

"Tell Bellamy I say hi," Lincoln says in response, and then he walks off, searching - like all of them - to find something to do that will make him feel less helpless. Clarke sighs and puts her hand in her pocket, her fingers brushing the sooty sleeve. 

She walks to the medbay slowly, with her head down, painfully aware of the eyes that follow her everywhere. She can't tell if they're hopeful or resentful, can't trust her judgment when she's feeling so dark. But she knows they're looking to her because they need to know what happens next, and with Bellamy in the medbay, the responsibility is on her.

She ducks off the main path and cuts across the wilted garden behind Raven's workshop to avoid some of the eyes. As she's about to round the corner, she hears hushed voices and goes still.

"I'm not saying I want to leave," the girl says in exasperation. _Emori,_ Clarke realizes.

"That's what this sounds like," Murphy says, his voice a touch harder to hear than hers.

"I actually like it here. Raven's been showing me some things, and it's kind of cool that no one here seems to care about my hand for once. But this isn't the sort of decision we should make based on emotion."

Silence. The shuffle of feet.

"Not the lighthouse," Murphy mutters. There's something about the way he says it that makes it sound like a plea even though it has his usual dry inflection.

"No," Emori agrees quickly. "We don't have to go back there if you don't want. But... we should decide whether or not staying is a survivor's move."

"Yeah," Murphy says. "Yeah, okay."

Clarke hears the smack of lips and backs away the way she came. Her chest is tight as she comes inside the medbay, kicking snow off her boots and closing the door quickly behind her.

Bellamy doesn't raise his head, but his hand twitches. His eyes are halfway open as she walks around his cot and sits by his head. He's stretched out on his stomach with his blistered back exposed to the air, in the same position he's been for three days.

"Hey," she says gently. "How are you feeling?"

"Hurts," he says hoarsely. Clarke picks up his hand and kisses his knuckles. She sees his cheek curve with a weak smile.

"That's good," she promises. "That means you still have nerve endings. You want another cold compress?" 

"Please."

Clarke leaves his side just long enough to find a sterile rag and dunk it in a pot of boiled water she left to cool earlier. There's still enough for another application after this, so she doesn't set any more over the fire and carefully drapes the wet rag over Bellamy's upper back. He groans in relief at the first touch of the cool water against his blisters. The skin is still angry and red, but she's relieved to see there's no streaking or other signs of infection. 

"It looks pretty good," she tells him, resting one hand in his curls and stroking softly. Bellamy makes a quiet pleased sound in the back of his throat and it fills her with unspeakable affection. "The doctor says you'll be able to start throwing your weight around camp in two weeks or so."

"Mmm. Good," Bellamy murmurs. Clarke winds one of his locks between her fingers. She pulls her hand back reluctantly, and Bellamy's eyes focus.

"I've been thinking," Clarke says, folding her hands in her lap so she doesn't reach for him. "We're in pretty bad shape, Bellamy. I don't think we're gonna make it through the winter if we stay here." 

He struggles to prop himself up with his elbows to get on her eye-level and Clarke grabs his arms to push him down before he tears his skin.

"Stop that," she says, and the tears that only retreated with Lincoln make a reappearance. "You know I wouldn't say that if it weren't true." She takes a deep breath. "I'm going to take Monty and a few others to that bunker you found. See if he can get the farm and life support running. If he can, then everyone will have to decide if they still want to stay with us or go back to Arkadia. If he can't... then we all go back."

"I'll go where you go," Bellamy says without hesitation. 

Clarke picks up his hand and laces their fingers tightly. She squeezes tightly, telling herself this will have to last her several days. It seems amazing that she went nineteen years of her life without touching Bellamy, and now she is reaching for him every chance she gets and cannot remember how she endured before. She raises their hands and kisses the inside of his wrist.

"Focus on healing, first," she says. His eyes stay on hers even as she closes the door. Clarke stands on the other side for a moment, disoriented by the strange flipping in her stomach and the brightness of sun on snow. She shakes herself roughly and moves on.

Monty is a given on the mission, since he has the most Agro Station experience of all of them to assess whether the bunker’s hydroponics still work, and Clarke feels like she has to go too, because this village is her mistake. She put everyone in danger. She needs to give them a way out. Lincoln wordlessly volunteers himself, showing up at the gates dressed for the trek and carrying the same sort of sad regret in his eyes that Clarke thinks is in hers, too. He was on the first patrol that found the bunker, months ago, so he’s an obvious choice to bring along, but more than that - Clarke needs him to feel absolved, even though the raw pine logs in the firewood pile were not his fault. Harper and Monroe come along for extra muscle, after a spirited rock-paper-scissors tournament that leaves Miller in charge of the village while Clarke is gone and Bellamy is bedridden. He swears at them half-heartedly before gesturing for the guards on duty to winch open the gate. 

Clarke looks over her motley group as the gates creak ominously apart, making sure everyone’s brought along hats and gloves - rough, mishappen things clumsily sewed together from furs, but warm - and weapons. Always weapons, when they leave their home. No one’s really forgotten or forgiven Tristan’s army. Clarke absently pats her hip, where Bellamy’s handgun sits in a holster. The chill of metal she feels through her gloves is probably imagined. In any case - there aren’t a lot of Grounders on their territory. They’ll be fine. 

She looks over her shoulder as she leads the group through the gates out into the waiting forest. She waits for Octavia to come skidding over snow from behind a cabin, stowing her sword and yelling at them to wait. She never misses an opportunity to leave the safety of the walls. When she doesn’t appear, Clarke glances at Lincoln.

“She’s not coming?” she asks. Lincoln’s mouth twitches. 

“She’s already out there.”

True to his word, Octavia joins them several hours into the trek with the hind leg of a deer strapped to her back. The smear of dried blood under her jaw doesn’t look like it belongs to her, especially if her bright smile is any indication. She jerks her thumb over her shoulder. 

“Dinner,” she says cheerfully. “I wish Miller had come so I could rub it in his face.”

“Where’s the rest?” Harper asks as she falls into step with the rest of the group. Clarke only half pays attention to their chatter as she fords ahead with Lincoln.

“Used most of the organs for bait. Set up a string of snares along the river, upstream of that big willow tree. The rest is hanging from a tree. I’d _love_ to see the bears try to get at it.”

“It wouldn’t be bad news if they did,” Harper muses. “We could definitely use the fur.”

 _We really could,_ Clarke thinks. They lost so much bedding and clothing in the fire. Lincoln said there’ll be more in the bunker, but maybe it won’t matter. Maybe everyone will decide they’re safer returning to Arkadia. Clarke wouldn’t blame them. She just knows she can’t go back. 

Soon Harper and Octavia fall silent, only the sounds of their panting reaching Clarke’s ears, and the rest of the forest is quiet around them. The deep snow muffles every sound, like a dream. It should be cold but it’s such hard work fording through the snow that every few minutes Clarke will hear the sounds of someone else flapping their coat to get some air circulation around their torso, or pausing to stuff another layer into their backpacks and then running to catch up with the others. When the snow falls, they greet it like a blessing. There’s no wind. It falls between the trees without hurry, and sparks a memory.

There was a snowglobe on the Ark. Welded onto the wall in Arrow Station above one of the system terminals, the lasting punchline of a prank someone had played nearly a century ago. Nothing ever shook it, and Arrow Station was far from the spin gravity generated by Alpha’s wheel, so every fake snowflake inside the globe stayed suspended in the same weightless configuration. A perfect snapshot of chaos. There was a superstition that if you kissed under it you’d be together forever, but Clarke didn’t pay that much attention. Now she feels like she hadn’t payed attention in general, but the snowglobe had been welded in place as long as anyone could remember, and as far as they’d known they were supposed to be intermediate generations that lived and died in space. Why pay attention to something that you assume will be there tomorrow, unchanged and whole?

It probably shattered when Arrow Station hit the ground, if it even survived the violent rattle of re-entry, and for some reason the thought of broken glass, the liquid spilling out, the fake snowflakes knocked out of their eternal limbo… it hits Clarke like a blow to the stomach. She doesn’t realize she’s stopped walking until Harper’s hand shakes her shoulder. Her knees are getting damp as snow slowly seeps through them. When did she fall to her knees?

“Clarke!” Harper calls. “Are you all right? Clarke, snap out of it!”

“I’m fine,” she says. 

“Are you hurt? Do we need to rest?” Monty asks. 

“Fine,” Clarke says, except that for some reason something in her chest really hurts. She forces herself to breathe until the pain fades. Until she looks like she’s in control.

 _We’ve ruined everything,_ she thinks. _The Ark, the dropship, Mount Weather. Our village. I need this to work. I need something to last._ But she doesn’t want to say it out loud. Doesn’t want that pressure on Monty’s shoulders. If the bunker isn’t habitable, then everyone goes back home to Arkadia just like Pike wanted, and Monty can return to his mother without shame or guilt. 

“It’s okay to not be okay,” Harper says gently. Clarke shakes her head roughly. She surges to her feet and keeps putting one foot in front of the other.

When dusk falls the forest goes dark and eerie. Clarke thinks of the palette she had so briefly in Mount Weather. Purples, she thinks. It’s easy to think of night falling over them in monochrome, but the shadows are purple and blue if you look close. They light torches and keep going another hour, pushing as far as they can get until the strain in their eyes and the exhaustion in their limbs proves too much. Lincoln leads them to the ruins of a house, the roof and walls long-gone. The crumbling concrete foundations are all that remain and they are covered in a lacework of lichen and smell of mildew, but at least it proves shelter from the wind and corrals some of the warmth from the fire. 

Octavia carves the venison she brought cleaner than Clarke ever could, even if she were using a scalpel rather than a sword. They roast it in chunks over the fire and eat before the meat cools, singeing their tongues. Octavia takes first watch, and Clarke crawls into her bedroll next to Monroe to share some warmth. She presses her burnt tongue to the roof of her mouth insistently, even though it hurts, even though she shouldn’t. An owl hoots distantly in the trees and Clarke wonders how it finds anything under all the snow.

"So," Harper says. "You and Bellamy, huh?"

Octavia drops the last of her dinner into the snow. "I am _right here_ ," she complains.

"And?" Miller asks with a rare half-smile. "You're not curious about when your brother and Clarke finally stopped being so oblivious?"

"Is this really the time?" Clarke asks weakly. In the bedroll next to her, Monroe is trying to muffle her laughter, but Clarke can feel her body shaking.

"I'm just saying, it looked like you knew your way around that kiss," Harper says. "And I'm happy for you guys. You deserve to be happy."

Clarke tries to crawl deeper into her bedroll. At least the embarrassment is bringing the blood circulation back to her cold-numbed cheeks. "I haven't - we haven't talked about it yet," she mumbles.

Monty, bless him, jumps upon the chance to divert the conversation to all the work they have ahead of them to keep busy, and no one else prods at Clarke. They each go quiet one by one, gently and mumbling, and at last Clarke falls asleep to the rhythmic scrape of Octavia’s whetstone and the smell of blood leaching from the sword.

Several hours later, Monty wakes her up for the last watch. His chin is dropping to his chest even as he tells her it’s all clear, and when Clarke gently admonishes him for not waking her up sooner, he can only manage a vague grunt. He’s curled up and completely still before she’s even sat up and laid her handgun in her lap. The forest is holding its breath for dawn, not a single unknown sound drifting into their shelter, so Clarke leans back against the concrete wall and watches her companions sleep, their faces so slack and peaceful. Slowly, the yawning mouth of grief inside of her doesn’t seem so wide and impassable. It begins to strengthen into something like resolve. When the sky through the naked trees becomes the colour of a bruised peach, Clarke folds up her blankets and feeds small twigs into the fire’s glowing embers. The others wake to the smell of warming meat, and soon their conversation fills the chill air. Clarke chews slowly, letting the flavour linger. Harper stomps her boots to get her blood flowing while she waits for the others to finish packing. 

_This will be a good day,_ Clarke thinks, even as Monroe squints up at the sky. 

“What was that nursery rhyme again?” she muses, as Octavia pretends not to be interested in the answer. “Red sky at night… red sky at morning, sailors take warning?”

“What’s the warning?” Octavia asks.

“A storm,” Monroe answers, just as Harper punches her shoulder and says: “We’re not sailors, we don’t need to worry.”

“The village will be all right,” Monty adds quickly, mistaking Clarke’s quiet contemplation for worry. She smiles and waves him off. They will be all right. She will make it so, and if the only price they pay is leaving the ocean behind it will be small in comparison to everything else they’ve lost.

Lincoln tells them they’re close, and by noon Monty begins to recognize landmarks too. He points them out with infectious enthusiasm. A tree split and blackened by lightning. A rock formation that looks like a sleeping beast, the fallen birch that emerges from the snow at its head like a silvery tusk. They cross a frozen river they can just barely hear gurgling underneath the ice, and Clarke begins to imagine their life here. The delinquents coming here to tie a rope to that low-hanging branch so they can swing into the deepest part of the water. The rapids where they might be able to set up nets, assuming no one’s gotten sick of the taste of fish yet. 

She is still turning over the idea of home in her head, finding ways to fit it into the landscape around her, when they crest a hill and see the smoke. Her blood runs cold as Lincoln grabs the back of her coat and drags her down to the ground. 

“Someone moved in,” Harper says, her voice low and full of dread. Clarke says nothing but she can feel something peeling off her soul. A scab coming off a wound that hasn’t healed.

“Clarke?” Lincoln asks. She swallows hard. There’s a roaring in her ears like they haven’t left the ocean at all, and the waves are just behind her. 

“We’ve come all this way,” she forces out after a moment. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

“Octavia and I will scout,” Lincoln says. “Stay here. Stay safe.”

“You too,” Monty murmurs, and then they’re gone, two more shadows among the trees. Clarke inches forward on her elbows, peering over a snowdrift. The ivy Bellamy liked so much last summer is just a gray tangle now, but she can kind of see the skeleton of the old hotel that captured his imagination. Like the building they rested in last night, the roof and upper floors have long collapsed, and the pale white walls left behind look lonely. Two arches from some ancient ballroom remain in the center like the ribs of a beached whale, and somewhere in that maze of crumbled walls, someone has built a fire. The smoke that drifts through the open roof is thin and wispy, smaller than the bonfires that dot their village by their ocean. Clarke scans the hotel until her eyes begin to water from the glare of white snow and stone, but she sees no other columns. Just one fire then, big enough for a few people. 

Lincoln and Octavia return what feels like hours later, when Monty’s teeth have already begun to chatter and Harper has started playing with the safety on her rifle. 

“We only saw a few people,” Octavia says. “And it doesn’t look like they’ve found the bunker, because they’ve built tents on the ground floor.”

“They’re not heavily armed,” Lincoln says quietly. “Maybe just a family of hunters.”

The cold grip of fear around Clarke’s heart eases, but she tries to hold back the relief. The last thing they were prepared to encounter was a larger clan, perhaps starting their own village here. The fewer people there are on either side, the less likely some hothead will leap straight into a fight.

“Okay,” she says. “Not armed is good. Let’s go talk to them.”

Her mind races as they stand and shake snow off their stomachs. Harper stays close by as they walk through the hotel’s overgrown grounds. They pass the basin of a fountain that is now overflowing with snow, the statue at its center missing its head and one arm. Pieces of white Greek columns are scattered without any apparent pattern or logic, like knucklebones tossed by a god or a tornado. The thorns of an apple orchard that has eschewed its original neat rows claw at their hats. Clarke is faintly reminded of a fairytale she once heard. 

They’re spotted just before they reach the crumbling hotel’s main entrance. A shout rises up, and suddenly there are faces in the shattered windows, a figure stepping out where the door used to be. Clarke raises her hands in the air when she recognizes the shape the figure is fumbling with as a crossbow. 

“!” he yells out, raising the crossbow to them. 

“Tell him we’re friendly!” Clarke hisses, and Octavia’s voice rings out in rapid-fire Trigedasleng. Like Clarke, she holds her hands up to show that she’s not armed, and she creeps forward ever so slightly as she speaks in a friendly, reassuring voice. The Grounder in the doorway doesn’t shoot, but he doesn’t lower his aim, either. A second man appears and lingers in his shadow. Another face in the window to their left.

“They want us to go,” Octavia translates. “This is their home now.”

Clarke swallows hard. 

“We can’t leave,” she says quietly. “At the very least, we need the supplies in the bunker.”

Lincoln speaks up, asking a few questions the man with the crossbow grudgingly answers, as Clarke grasps at their options. They need the supplies to have a chance at surviving the winter, but even assuming her small group can bring back enough blankets and warm clothing to replace everything burnt in the longhouse - and there’s not enough of them to carry it all - it won’t be enough, and once these Grounders know about it there’s no guarantee that there will be anything usable left if they come again. 

It’s worse than that. She wants the shelter of the bunker too, and the promise of electricity, heat, hydroponics - all luxuries that the delinquents shrugged away in the summer when everything was green and warm and the freedom of a blue sky seemed more valuable than technology. 

Clarke shakes her head. 

“Tell them our people are moving in,” she says. “They’re welcome to live with us, but we’re coming here and that’s final.”

“I thought we were just here for supplies?” Octavia argues. “We can’t just invade them - “

“Do you want to survive this winter?” Clarke snaps. “We move in, or we go back to Arkadia with our tails between our legs.”

Lincoln leans a heavy hand on Octavia’s shoulder, holding her in place, and calls out Clarke’s offer. Octavia’s face settles into a dark glower. Clarke holds her breath. Behind her, Monty shuffles nervously. The boy lurking behind the man with the crossbow is about her age, if she had to guess. He’s tall and strong, like nearly every Grounder they’ve seen, but the beard growing in patches betrays his youth. When Lincoln makes the offer, his eyebrows come together in a sneer and he steps out around the man. He spits out a response in Trigedasleng that carries over his companion’s urging to return, and the only word Clarke really recognizes is _Skaikru,_ but the tone is informative enough. Octavia unsheathes her sword and bars his way with one hand, the other still raised and patting the air soothingly. 

“He wants to know what happens if they don’t agree,” Lincoln murmurs to her. It seems like an incomplete translation. Clarke shakes her head without taking her eyes off the angry boy and the man still leveling the crossbow at them. 

“Don’t make me,” she whispers. “Tell them we can live together. We don’t have to fight.”

Lincoln hesitates before calling something else out. The boy howls in outrage and draws a dagger from a wrist sheath with a soft _snick._ Clarke sees the arc of his arm through the air, sees the man with the crossbow hunch his neck so the bolt is lined up with his eye. The metal of Bellamy's handgun is freezing against Clarke's palm. She doesn't remember reaching for it, but she raises it and fires without blinking. 

The man with the crossbow drops to his knees, red splattering against the white of snow. Pain blooms in Clarke’s shoulder and she stumbles backwards. The boy with the dagger is screaming, and so is everyone else, and the voices merge into one ear-splitting cacophony. He starts towards the body, and then seems to recognize there’s too much blood seeping into the snow and turns back, lunging for Octavia. Clarke fires again and his head snaps back, splattering Octavia with tiny drops. Dante kept a toothbrush with his paintbrushes. During one of their talks he showed Clarke how to drag her thumb across it to make a fine, even shower of pinpricks. He said it was good for splattering stars into the sky, or freckles. Or blood from an arterial wound. No, he didn’t say that. That’s Clarke filling in the blanks, her mind stuttering over violence like a broken record. Octavia stumbles back, her mouth wide open in shock, and Clarke sees movement out of the corner of her eye. She fires a third time and a woman watching from the window crumples. 

“What the _fuck,_ ” Octavia yells, and as she strides towards Clarke she seems to get taller and taller until she’s looming over her, and it’s only when hands catch her that Clarke realizes she was falling. She hears Harper grunt under her weight, and then someone jostles her shoulder and pain overrides every other sense. When her vision returns to her they are already inside the ruins. Monty and Lincoln are chipping ice away from the edges of a metal door. The bodies are nowhere in sight. Harper is tying her headband around Clarke’s upper arm and Octavia is still yelling. 

Clarke’s eyes slide sideways to Harper’s shaking fingers. 

“Is that supposed to be a tourniquet?” she asks numbly. 

“What is _wrong with you?_ ” Octavia snarls. 

_For starters, there’s a crossbow bolt in my arm,_ Clarke thinks distantly. She reaches up with her other hand and pushes Harper’s hands away. 

“Need my first aid kit,” she murmurs, and Harper nudges it closer. Oh. She hadn’t realized it was already open. “Scissors,” she murmurs. “Snap the shaft as close to the skin as possible. I can’t get my coat off while it’s sticking out.” 

“Me?” Harper asks nervously, even as she digs through the kit and picks out the shears. “Oh my god, this is so gross.”

“Just a body,” Clarke says faintly. “No big deal.”

Despite Harper’s best efforts it takes her a few tries to snap the bolt’s shaft, and the reverb through Clarke’s arm makes her black out again. By the time she’s once again aware of her surroundings, they’ve changed again. The heavy metal door is on her other side, and Monty is flipping switches in an electrical panel. The air smells stale and dusty. They must be inside the bunker. Harper is chanting swear words under her breath like a calming mantra, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Clarke swings her heavy head to the side and sees the bloodstain on her arm. She tries to lift it and is overcome by a wave of nausea when she feels the bolt shift. 

“I need to take my coat off,” she says dully, and Monroe and Harper help her lean forward and ease it off both shoulders at once, trying to keep her from needing to bend her arm. Clarke forces herself to breathe through the pain and tells herself this is the worst part. It’s not. She sticks her fingers into the wound and pushes the bolt out, and tells herself that’s the worst part, too, and then stuffing gauze into it isn’t as bad, so they’re probably in the clear. “Where’s Octavia?” she asks when she finally leans back against the wall, exhausted. She’s drenched in sweat, but everyone’s breath still fogs in front of their face, so Monty can’t have gotten the heat up just yet. 

“Taking a walk,” Monroe says. “Painkillers?”

“Nah, don’t waste them on me,” Clarke says, and promptly passes out. 

\- four and a half years later

Clarke manages to fall asleep somehow despite the low rumble of thunder and she awakens to silence. No thunder, and no beat of raindrops on the rover’s roof. Monty is still sleeping across from her, frowning in his dreams, but the rest of the rover is empty. Clarke crawls out from under the blankets and slips out quietly to find the others already sitting on a fallen log a few paces away, dividing Murphy’s dwindling rations into smaller portions. Clarke wordlessly accepts part of a tinfoil-wrapped potato that has been warmed in the embers at their feet and digs in. She hums happily, feeling its warmth all the way down her throat and into her stomach. Bellamy adjusts the drape of his jacket on her shoulders and smiles.

“Fuck, I miss Murphy’s cooking,” she murmurs to her potato, as Raven snorts on her other side. 

As they eat in their small, isolated bubble, Clarke watches the rest of the village wake and go about their chores. She’s not sure quite how big the village is, since the houses are scattered through the bush and there doesn’t seem to be a wall enclosing them, but unless there’s quite a bit more hidden in the forest, the Shallow Valley survivors seeking shelter here have probably nearly doubled their number. There aren’t a lot of children, either, though they could be asleep or sequestered inside away from the Sky People or even sent away, further from the danger making a home in Shallow Valley. Clarke eyes the sword on the hip of a nearby Grounder who is embroidering designs into a saddle so diligently he might actually be guarding them, instead.

“Clarke?” Emori calls, and she abandons her suspicions to look around in confusion until Miller nudges her gaze in the right direction. Emori stands half-hidden by vivid green foliage at the edge of the village. She raises her eyebrows expectantly and jerks her head. Clarke glances casually at the nearest Grounder, the one with the saddle, but he’s not watching right now. She stands and zips Bellamy’s jacket a little higher up her chest before meandering in Emori’s direction. Bellamy finishes his half of the potato and follows, pretending to be examining the mulberries on low-hanging branches. “I found this in the woods.”

“What is it?” 

In response, Emori silently pulls out a wad of rough Grounder bandages from behind her back and shakes the dew-damp clump out. Clarke coughs as the smell of old blood wafts over. She covers her mouth and bats away the hand Bellamy tries to lay between her shoulderblades. She’d considered herself lucky, up until now, that she hadn’t experienced the awful morning sickness that had plagued Harper in her first few months of pregnancy. Her body is certainly trying to make up the absent nausea now. 

“Sorry,” Emori mutters. “But I thought you should look at it,” she says, and angles it so Clarke can see the dark bloodstain. Clarke keeps her hand covering her mouth but leans in, entranced by the colour. 

“That’s not…” Bellamy says. 

“Nope,” Emori says. _That’s not normal blood,_ Clarke thinks, following Bellamy. She’s changed enough dressings in her life to know that old blood dries a dark, disgusting brown, but even at its darkest it retains a red tint. The bloodstain Emori is showing them looks like it was mixed from a palette of blues and purples. It looks like ink. There’s no warmth to it. “I think there’s a nightblood hiding in this village.”

Clarke found out about nightblood in bits and pieces over the past few years. A word here, a story wreathed in the usual Grounder mysticism there. She didn’t realize until this moment that she didn’t entirely believe it existed. She accepts the truth of it in one heartbeat and in the next, inevitably wonders what the revelation of a secret nightblood could do to shake Lexa’s army’s confidence in her - 

She shudders violently and Emori quickly holds the rain-soaked bandages away from her, thinking it’s nausea. But the smell of blood isn’t what Clarke is revolted by, not this time. It’s her own first impulses. There’s a better solution lying ahead of them. They just have to work for it. But just in case…

“Hide it somewhere safe,” she asks Emori. “Please. I hope it doesn’t come up, but…”

“It’s a survivor’s move,” Emori says, more to herself than Clarke, as she turns away and slips deeper into the forest. Clarke stares at the trees she disappeared between and breathes shallowly until the smell of blood begins to fade in her memory. It’s never far from hand, though. She’s spilled so much blood in her short life…

Bellamy tenderly brushes a tendril of loose hair out of her face and Clarke jerks back into the present. She relaxes when she realizes it’s him and leans into the touch, seeking comfort in the gentle drag of his fingers through her tangled hair. 

“What are you thinking about?” he asks softly. 

“Lexa,” Clarke admits. Bellamy’s hand falters only momentarily as he pulls at a knot in her hair. 

“Does it still hurt?” he asks, and she feels a rush of irritation.

Of course it still hurts. Everyone who is gone now - some dead and some just distant - still hurts, each one of them a splinter under her skin. Her dad. Wells. Finn. Lexa. Jasper.

“Sometimes,” she says, a little sharper than she means to. “Does it still hurt when you think of Octavia?”

Bellamy’s eyes flicker to the ground and Clarke wants to take it back immediately, or at least throw her arms around him. His eyelashes tremble in a shaft of sunlight before he meets her eyes again. 

“Sometimes,” he says simply. 

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says, gently touching his hand with one cautious fingertip. The apology isn’t just for bringing it up. Bellamy sighs and slings his whole arm around her shoulders, pulling her to his side. His other hand reaches for her stomach before he abruptly closes it into a fist and lowers it, remembering where they are. Remembering _who_ they are, in the eyes of strangers. 

“We’ve spent long enough apologizing,” he says at last, and directs them back into the camp, where Miller is furiously blowing on his fingertips after fishing the last potato out of the embers for Monty to eat. By the time Emori returns and slips into the open spot on a bench as if she’d been there all along, they’re already making a battle plan. Raven leans her head on Bellamy’s shoulder as he spreads their map over their knees and traces their progress from New Rome. 

“We’re all agreed it’s time to investigate the Shallow Valley itself, right?” Bellamy asks, and gets a chorus of agreeing murmurs. 

“If Indra and her group agree to let us go,” Miller says pointedly. 

“She wants to figure out what happened too,” Monty mumbles around his potato. Clarke tunes them out and looks over her shoulder at the makeshift shelter where the injured Shallow Valley survivors are. 

“I’ll be back,” she murmurs to her friends, and crosses the village with new resolve. 

Nyko looks up from the poultice he’s mixing as she enters the cabin. 

“Are you helping out today?”

“No, I think we’re going to go investigate the ship that came to the valley,” Clarke says. The flicker in Nyko’s eyes as he leans back and scrutinizes her might be increased respect. It’s hard to tell sometimes. “I just… I wanted to say goodbye to the girl with the dark hair.” She gives the empty cot by the door a lingering look. 

“Ah,” Nyko says. “Madi. She’s outside somewhere, probably in the gardens. She’s been staring at walls for too long.”

“Thanks,” Clarke says. “Do you want me to leave you my supplies…?”

“Everyone that could have been saved is already on the mend,” Nyko says. “We’ll be all right. And if you’re headed into the valley, you’ll need it more.” 

“I hope not,” Clarke mutters. “Goodbye, Nyko.”

True to his word, she finds the girl with matted hair - _Madi_ \- sitting in a patch of strawberries at the edge of the village, her knees drawn up to her chest, her hair hiding her face as she dumps a worm on the end of a twig back into a shaded patch of dirt. She doesn’t look up as Clarke approaches, though she has to hear her careful, deliberate footsteps. She does drop the twig and wrap her skinny arms tighter around her knees. 

“Hey,” Clarke says. “Madi.”

If the girl is shocked that Clarke knows her name, she gives no indication. 

“I know we’re strangers,” Clarke continues, “And you have no reason to trust me or believe me. But, um. Have you ever seen the ocean?” she pauses and Madi reluctantly shakes her head. “It’s beautiful. It’s… bigger than anything you can ever imagine. My village is near it, and we go swimming sometimes, in the summer. We play soccer - that’s a game that used to exist before the end of the world - and we have a bunch of chickens that follow our cook around like he’s their mom, and - “

Madi sniffles sharply and Clarke lets out a heavy exhale. 

“A lot of the kids in my village lost their parents,” she says. “So… we all try to be each other’s family. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, of course. But when we come back… we’ll stop by here, and you’re welcome to come home with us.”

Maybe it’s dangerous to promise to return to a child that has already lost everything, when Clarke can’t be sure they’ll survive whatever’s waiting for them in the valley, but Madi suddenly comes alive with a jerk, raising her head and blinking her huge, haunted eyes at Clarke. 

“You’re going?” she asks sharply. 

“Yeah,” Clarke says. “We’re going to find out who killed your parents, and we’re going to get justice.”

“Now?” Madi demands. Her gaze is so captivating, so feral, that Clarke can’t look away. 

“Sometime today,” Clarke says. “When Indra gets her warriors ready.”

Madi stares at her for another long moment before dropping her gaze and hunching back into herself. 

“My village was already each other’s family,” she says quietly. 

“I’m so sorry you lost them,” Clarke whispers. “It’s not fair, and it shouldn’t have happened.”

The worm that Madi moved into the shade has been slowly inching back into the sunlight. Madi picks up the twig and hooks its squirming body once more, dragging it back to safety. She doesn’t reply. Clarke stands up slowly, wishing there was more she could do or say to ease the girl’s pain. 

But you can’t erase pain. You can only overcome it one day a time.

“Goodbye, Madi,” Clarke says, and walks back to the rover to help the others prepare. She feels Madi’s eyes on her the whole way away. 

Indra is as eager to move on and get answers as they are, so it doesn’t take long before they’re packed and loaded with new provisions. Clarke isn’t sure how Indra’s warriors managed to negotiate food considering the welcome they got last night, but she doesn’t ask. Murphy’s rations are quickly running out. To Bellamy’s obvious relief, Indra’s warriors even decide to return all their weapons to them - all the ones they knew about, at least. Clarke is certain Emori had more knives stored away.

Clarke casts one more look around the village just before she climbs into the rover. Some of the Grounders have gathered to watch them go. Some of them have hard, cold faces. Some look away and pretend to be busy when she meets their gazes. Still others raise their chins and look on with a proud, defiant hope. Clarke scans twice for Madi, but the girl has vanished. She swallows down her disappointment and gets into her seat.

\- four and a half years earlier

Clarke wakes up to fluorescent lighting, and for a moment she lies still, observing the faint flickering of the far left strip and the prismatic colour at the edges of each panel. A year on the ground cannot completely erase nearly eighteen years on the Ark, and she doesn’t immediately register the lighting - the electricity powering it, however unreliable - as unusual, nor the thin mattress she’s lying on nor the clean, antiseptic smell. Her lips twitch with the ghost of a smile. She used to fall asleep at the end of her shifts in the medbay all the time, waiting for her mother to finish obsessively taking inventory of supplies that had already been counted thousands of times in the past 97 years so that they could walk back to their quarters together. 

Then she raises her hand to scratch at an itch on her other wrist, and the pain that throbs in her bicep reminds her. There is no Ark, not anymore. 

She bolts upright and then cradles her spinning, aching head. The dry, bitter taste in the back of her throat hints at painkillers. She checks her itchy wrist and finds no fewer than three failed injection sites before an inexperienced hand managed to insert an IV line properly. Clarke stares at it for a moment, vaguely irritated for reasons she can’t quite grasp, and pulls it off, along with the heart monitor clamped onto her index finger. 

“Seriously?” she murmurs. “I wasn’t dying.”

The machine next to her cot complains shrilly about the lack of pulse until Clarke jabs the override code into it. Same model they had on the Ark, and she has to shove the nostalgia down. She does pause to examine the bandages around her biceps, but they look all right to her, and she’s not going to pull the dressing off just because whoever treated her went overboard on the gauze. Then she slips off the cot and paces around the room. It’s wide enough for the length of two cots, plus an aisle between them. Ten cots on each side, twenty total, each one sealable from the rest, with portable carts loaded with all the equipment she’s been pining for since they landed on Earth. A real operating theatre on the side, with half a dozen surgical gowns hung up on hooks where they were left a century ago. Even compared to the Ark’s medbay, this is luxurious. She holds back tears until she’s kicked at every vent covering and made sure there’s no room full of anemic bodies behind them. It’s unlikely to happen a second time, but she still has to check. Then she sits down for a moment and rubs her face. 

Three murders. Three lives ended to get into this bunker with its brand new equipment and untouched supplies. Clarke can save more than three lives here. Probably will before summer sets in, if her people keep getting injured at the rate that they do. Something inside of her rebels at the thought of breaking even, trading lives like that, but a cold and pragmatic part of her insists on it. She shakes her head and forces herself to leave the ward. 

The hall is bare and empty in both directions. The cement walls were painted a dark green at some point before the apocalypse and it doesn’t do much to make them more hospitable. When she pokes her head into the rooms that branch off the corridor she finds them fine and luxurious, untouched by rust or moths or the passage of time, even nicer than their dorm in Mount Weather. And all eerily empty and silent. She wonders about the people who had this bunker built under the hotel. Wonders why they didn’t make it inside before the world ended. All this preparation, and none of it mattered. Not for them. For her and the delinquents, it will mean everything. She walks until she finds a major junction and the sign that marks points of interest. Block letters in English, Spanish and Hindi point her towards the medical ward she just came from, dorms A through F, the cafeteria, internal operations, and something called Congress Hall. Clarke considers for a moment and heads towards operations. 

The door is open, and she walks faster when she hears a thud and a quiet curse. She finds Monty in the midst of dozens of scattered papers, an overturned box next to him. She bends down to help him pick them up and he bats her hands away immediately. 

“Stop it, these were in order,” he mutters, and Clarke sits back for a moment, watching him squint at indexes and slowly tidy the dropped box into a stack. “Sorry,” he says sheepishly as she hands him the last folder. Underneath the giant red stamp marking it as _CLASSIFIED,_ it’s labeled as _Project Greek Island Communication Protocol Delta-17._ “There’s decades of records here, and I’m having trouble figuring out what’s up to date. Or at least, what _was_ up to date when… when the world ended.”

“What are you looking for?” Clarke asks softly. Monty gestures vaguely at a pile of papers he’s stacked on the far desk, where a single lamp casts a lonely pool of incandescent light. 

“Everything, mostly,” he says. “The water filtration system looks like it’s fine. I started up a batch of algae for now because it’ll have the quickest turnaround and we need some green in our diets, but there’s a whole vault full of viable seeds once we’re ready to start planting other crops, and I want to have a better handle on the hydroponics before I start anything more complicated. Uh, what else? I’m not actually sure what’s powering our electricity right now. It was originally built to use a biomass reactor, but the records say there were plans to move to geothermal power in the 1980s, and I don’t know if they made any modifications after the 2000s - “

Clarke grabs at his hand. 

“Hey,” she says. “What’s the rush?”

“There’s no rush,” Monty replies automatically. He shakes off her grip and retreats into himself. “Except, you know, the usual pressure of keeping everyone alive.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Clarke says, trying to force a smile that doesn’t matter much when Monty won’t meet her eyes. “…Raven will be on her way, right?”

“Yeah,” Monty says, his shoulders slumping. “Harper and Monroe went back to escort everyone here.” His gaze finally fixes on her upper arm. “Shit, I forgot to ask how you’re feeling.”

Clarke rolls her shoulder with a wince. “It’ll heal,” she says. “How long was I out?”

Monty shrugs. “We got here a day ago. You woke up a few times but Harper kept knocking you out because you were, um. Emotional.” Monty still isn’t looking at her, and he doesn’t have the excuse of organizing overturned papers now. She swallows down the hard lump in her throat and cautiously reaches out again. He doesn’t shy away from her hand, but he doesn’t relax when she lays it on his shoulder, either. 

“Monty,” Clarke asks softly. “Are you okay?”

He opens his mouth to speak several times and at last shudders with his whole body. “Ask me again tomorrow,” he says. When he gets up and crosses the room to the stacks of folders he’s already set aside to read, it’s a clear sign he’s done with this conversation. And Clarke has been there, so she stands up and leaves without bothering him any further.

She carries a growing sense of dread and nausea with her in her belly as she finds a corridor that slopes up towards the surface. The smear of blood on the wall where she and Harper took the bolt out of her arm is still there. The door is unlatched. Clarke grabs the heavy metal wheel and turns, pushing it open even when the pain in her arm blinds her. The sky beyond the vault door is as white and glaring as the snow. The perfect winter wonderland, undisturbed except for bloodstains and drag marks in the snow. Clarke’s not warmly dressed enough to be outside for long but she follows the tracks helplessly until she comes to the far edge of the gardens. 

The three bodies - the three people she _murdered_ \- are lined up in a neat row, their arms crossed over their chests like they’re sleeping. Someone has done a poor job of wiping the splattered blood underneath the jaw of the boy who pulled out the dagger.

“What are you doing out here?” Octavia asks, her voice dripping with disgust and muted violence. Clarke turns, shivering, to find her cradling part of one of the numerous white columns that litter the gardens. 

“Are you trying to bury them?” Clarke asks. 

“Can’t,” Octavia bites out. “Ground’s too frozen. But I figured piling rocks will keep the scavengers away until spring.”

“That’s a good idea,” Clarke murmurs. 

“I wouldn’t have to do it if someone hadn’t murdered them.”

As Clarke stands there, shivering in her thin clothes, it occurs to her that she’d be very easy to kill, too. She grasps weakly for something to say and settles on just shaking her head. 

“I didn’t want to kill them,” she says at last. 

“Save it,” Octavia snorts, and steps around her, letting the stone she’s carrying drop into the snow next to one of the bodies with a muffled thud. She drags it into place over the woman’s feet and starts walking back towards the nearest pile of rubble. Clarke shakes off the cold that’s trying to creep into her bones and runs after her. She grabs at a protruding piece of column and hauls it into her arms, mirroring Octavia. Clarke’s bicep throbs, so she shifts most of the weight onto her other arm and clenches her jaw through the pain. They work together in silence for several minutes, burying the nameless woman’s body beneath white rubble from the collapsed hotel, one rock at a time until Clarke is shivering so violently she’s having trouble keeping her grip on the stones. “Go inside,” Octavia snaps at her. “There’s no audience here. You don’t have to pretend to care.”

 _I do care,_ Clarke wants to scream. _I care, and I had to do it anyway. I’d go back in time and beg them for a different way out if I could. You don’t get to say it doesn’t hurt me._

“Fuck off,” she says instead, halfheartedly. She turns back to the rubble pile and Octavia throws her jacket at her. 

“I hope you get pneumonia and die before the others get here,” Octavia tells her. “So you die alone and embarrassed and no one can make up any legends or give you another cool nickname.”

Clarke stares at the jacket in the snow and is incredibly tempted to leave it there out of spite. But she wants to finish this job more than she wants to slap Octavia, so she grits her teeth and forces her stiff and painful arms through the holes and buttons it up.

“I didn’t ask for the name,” she murmurs. “I don’t like it.”

“That’s so tragic,” Octavia sneers, in a voice that does not sound like she finds it very tragic at all. “ _Wanheda._ ”

“What was I supposed to do?” Clarke snaps at last. 

“We would have figured something out,” Octavia says, shifting rocks to cover the dead man’s torso. “Your solution to everything is just murder.”

“I invited them to live with us,” Clarke says, and resists the urge to make a jab about Octavia’s translation skills. 

“We could have walked away.”

“Because _you_ of all people would jump at the chance to go back to Arkadia?” Clarke says, and Octavia goes eerily still for a moment. Her nostrils flare, and in anger she looks so much like her brother that Clarke almost wants to comfort her. Then she turns away and the moment is lost. They don’t speak as they finish burying the last body under pale stone. Clarke can’t feel her exposed hands anymore, and the dressing on her arm feels wet and cold. She stands at the foot of the three mounds for a while and can’t help but remember the last time she grieved at a grave. She misses Wells. She misses feeling like she was making the right choices. When Clarke turns around, Octavia is long gone. She walks back to the bunker alone, shivering and sniffling, the back of her neck itching. When she looks over her shoulder at the mouth of the vault, she doesn’t see anyone else out there, but still she wonders if she left someone alive, if there were others hiding in the hotel’s ruins that fled from the sound of gunshots. Wonders if they’d consider it an insult that she cried at the graves of their family. 

She regrets killing them and she doesn’t. She’d do it again without flinching. She’ll do it again in her dreams tonight, and tomorrow night.

Lincoln finds her in the medbay later. The dressing on her arm has a massive crimson blot on it, but she’s ignoring it for now to deal with her hands. Her feet have escaped the touch of frostbite, thank goodness, but her fingers are frighteningly pale and stiff. Clarke looks up from her perch by the sink, where she’s submerged her hands in lukewarm water. Her fingers are itching and prickling painfully as the feeling returns to them, and she doesn’t want anyone to see her like this, but if someone had to, Lincoln would be one of her first choices. He comes to stand by her and looks into the sink with an expression that might be disapproval. 

“Octavia said you helped bury the bodies,” he says at last. _I’m sure that’s not how she worded it,_ Clarke thinks, but she looks away. There are still whispers in the camp sometimes, questioning Lincoln’s place in the midst of their people. His loyalties. Clarke wonders too, but not like the others do. She thinks Lincoln is hers. She’s killed for him, and that’s how Clarke usually defines things these days. But she wouldn’t be surprised if he feels divided between the people he grew up with and the people he’s taken under his wings. He’d have every right to hate her for murdering those three Grounders. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“I was there, Clarke,” he says with a long sigh, and she’s not sure what that means. He rubs hard at his face. “Clarke… Octavia and I are leaving. Something you said, I think it struck a chord with her. We’re going back to Arkadia, see if we can improve relations between Skaikru and the other clans.”

“Oh,” Clarke says, struck with sudden hurt. She feels the urge to cry build up, an itch behind her eyeballs that rivals the itch in her thawing hands. She already misses him. “That’s… that sounds like good work. When are you going?” 

“Now,” Lincoln says quietly. “Before the rest of the village arrives. I think she’s afraid Bellamy won’t let her go. Or that she won’t be able to leave.”

Clarke can understand that, too. He’s not an easy person to leave behind. 

“Be safe, please,” she says, and then she’s crying again, filled with so much shame and guilt. When he opens his arms she pulls her hands out of the water and steps forward into an embrace she doesn’t deserve. He presses his cheek to her hair and is silent as she sobs. “I’m sorry, Lincoln.”

“We all have monsters inside of us,” he murmurs. “You be safe, too.”

And then he pulls away, and smiles faintly at her from the doorway, and leaves. That’s the last time Clarke ever sees him. 

She spends the next few days sterilizing the entire medbay, doing inventory, and pouring over maintenance reports with Monty, though she doesn’t understand much of what she reads, and she gets the feeling he’s just humouring her. For a few days they are the only people in the bunker, and with the world still and white and quiet outside the vault doors, it feels like they’re the only people in the world. They stick close to each other if only not to go spinning off into separate gravities. The isolation is eerie. Clarke takes her first hot shower in months and stands under the spray of water for ages, listening to the ancient pipes creak and the patter of water on tile and her own breathing - nearing on sobs. When she comes out her skin is raw and pink and she still feels too dirty for the crisp sheets in one of the single bedrooms.

Monty finally raises the subject on the third day. 

“After Mount Weather,” he begins, hesitant, looking at her only out of the corner of his eye. Clarke sits, unmoving. When she doesn’t flee or fight him, he coughs and tries again. “After we killed them, I wondered how I did that. If it was some awful mistake, or I could do it again.”

Clarke tries very hard to read the first sentence under the heading Hygienic Standards for Drainage Filtration, but the words cease to hold meaning and then begin to blur and swim about the page. She startles when the first tear drop hits the page and wipes it away, leaving a smear that is a slightly darker gray. Her lower lip begins to tremble without her permission.

“I’m sorry,” Monty says. “For bringing it up.”

She shakes her head viciously. If her friends can’t bring their worries to her, if she can’t fix them, then she’s useless. 

“My first reaction after you shot them was relief,” Monty says, his voice cracking on _relief._ Clarke raises her head to find that he’s finally looking at her. He looks afraid. He looks like he is begging. “That you made the choice before I could find out what kind of person I really am.”

 _I bear it so they don’t have to,_ Dante’s ghost whispers to her, and all at once a certain peace settles over her. Or, if not a peace, the illusion of it, and that’s basically the same thing. Clarke straightens her shoulders and lets out a heavy breath.

“I know what kind of person you are, Monty,” she says, and she’s proud that her voice does not shake at all. “You’re a good person. One of the best I know. And if you’ve done terrible things, they were to protect people you love. To make things right.”

“I don’t think that’s enough justification for me,” Monty says, hunching in on himself. Neither of them have to imagine what Jasper would say if he were here. 

“Monty,” Clarke says quietly, reaching out her hand. He takes it and squeezes her fingers tightly. Lifelines. The world could end again outside the vault doors and they wouldn’t find out for hours. She holds his gaze. “I will make sure you never have to make a choice like that again.”

He lets out a ragged sob and claps his other hand to his face, trying to hold back others. Clarke shoves the binder full of dry filtration instructions off her lap and moves to sit next to him, wrapping one arm around his shoulders. She rocks him back and forth until his breathing slows, and in her head she tries to calculate how many months they’ve been on the ground. How old he is now. How old he was when he reprogrammed Mount Weather’s controls to irradiate level 5.

“I don’t think you’re a bad person,” he whispers eventually, his head lolled on hers in exhaustion.

“It’s okay,” Clarke says softly. “Someone has to be.”

Their people arrive that afternoon, and suddenly the bunker’s strange silence is shattered. Clarke finds them in the cafeteria, sitting in clumps at the tables, rubbing their hands to help the warmth set in and looking around at the bunker’s design with trepidation. For all of them, coming underground feels like a defeat. Now that they know what the sky looks like, what a breeze feels like when it’s not coming through a vent, it’s harder to go back to the claustrophobic lives they lived before on the Ark. For the Mount Weather survivors, it’s even worse, because the bunker’s soft luxury echoes that former cage. 

She didn’t expect there to be so many. Surely someone would have chosen to return to Arkadia? Clarke starts counting heads but gives up somewhere in the forties as delinquents get up and move to talk to each other. No absence jumps out at her, no one she can tell for sure is gone. Raven and Monty sit on the side with their heads bowed together, a pile of those goddamn maintenance reports spread on the table in front of them. Miller sitting across from them, making enough sandwiches for three. Through the serving window she sees Murphy poking through the kitchens.

And in the center of all the commotion, moving between tables to reassure people without belonging to one himself, is Bellamy. Clarke stills in the doorway and watches him. She would have liked to give his injuries another week before making him move, but if the exertion has pulled at the raw skin on his back, he doesn’t show it. There’s no sign of pain on his face or in the way he ducks down so a younger delinquent can ask a question over the background hum of conversation. 

Clarke wants to go to him so badly she feels the urge like a hook with its barbed point in her heart. All she’d have to do is let her feet carry her a few steps forward. He’d see her approach. He’d meet her halfway and wrap her in his arms and everything would feel less real for a moment. The thousands of tasks ahead of them to get the bunker ready for habitation, his sister’s absence, the blood on Clarke’s hands. She clenches her fists at her sides and the bite of her fingernails against her palms chases away the fantasy. They only had three days together after he came out of the fire and she kissed him, and he was unconscious for large chunks of them and they didn’t have the chance to talk about it.

Just as she makes the decision, he notices her and stands up straighter. She sees his shoulders relax ever so slightly, the smile that spreads over his face despite the walls closing in on them. It makes her sick to her stomach. Has no one told him yet? He raises his hand, not quite a wave, but an acknowledgment.

When she left the ruins of their village five days ago, she could have deluded herself into thinking she might one day return to the old Clarke - the girl she was before the lever, before TonDC, before the ring of fire. But Monty was right. She knows what kind of person she is now, and that person doesn’t deserve Bellamy. 

She doesn’t wave back. Doesn’t smile or come closer. Just gives him a nod and then backs away, letting the cafeteria doors swing shut behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Oso gaf sis au_ \- We (including person spoken to) want to help  
>  _Osir_ \- We (excluding person spoken to, at least if I understand the dictionary examples properly. Indra's trying to correct her conjugation. I wrote the dialogue before finding the html guide, so.)  
>  _Spichen branwoda_ \- lying brown-water. Brown-water is an insult meaning useless/harmful.  
>  _Ai laik fisa, nou ripa_ \- I’m a healer, not a killer, or, I’m here to heal not to kill.  
>  _Sten daun_ \- stand down, back off
> 
> The Brazilian flag is shown on Mecha Station at some point, implying that it used to be Brazil's craft before Unity Day.
> 
> I've been warned for years to keep fresh pine out of the firewood box because it's sappier than other woods and can cause a flammable residue in chimneys and burn down your house. I didn't think to research it until after I'd already written it into this chapter, but strangely, the internet is very undecided on whether the increased risk is significant enough to matter. But if jroth can ignore science for his plot, so can I.
> 
> Now that they’ve found the bunker in the S3 timeline I can reveal that it’s based on the real-life Greenbrier hotel. The [wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Greek_Island) on Project Greek Island is a quick, informative and fun read. I emphasize _based on_ because a) the real Greenbrier was located a little too far southwest for my tastes, so I’m pretending it’s slightly closer to the coast OR that the coast moved as sea levels rose, whatevs b) the real Greenbrier is fairly Federalist-y in architecture and I wanted it to be more obviously inspired by ancient Roman architecture so I gave it a bunch of Corinthian columns it doesn’t have in real life and c) apparently most of the real-life bunker in the Greenbrier was designed “to blend in” with the existing hotel, so like, a big vault door leading underground is not really blending in? idc.
> 
> The moral of this story is that rich people looooove bunkers and I made this map a while back of several real and/or plausible bunkers they could have used in S4 if jroth wasn’t so bad at worldbuilding.
> 
> Also, fyi? This fic does have a happy ending. It’ll be okay. In both timelines. Thank you for reading this far!


	4. a dream based on a falsehood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delayed update, I am totally disconnected from the passage of time and it shows.
> 
> Shout out to trigedasleng.net for providing me with enough examples to piece together shitty trigedasleng. Mistakes are mine, not theirs.
> 
>  **CONTENT WARNINGS:** murder, description of injuries and field medicine, hostage situations… and the S3 plot with Pike and the Blakes that basically made the fandom collectively recoil in disgust? Yeah. That happens off-screen.

#

  
\- four and a half years later 

The sun slowly rises in the sky as they make their way south towards the Shallow Valley, and with it, the temperature. This far from Arkadia, there are no well-worn roads, just pieces of abandoned highway that haven’t yet been cracked apart by growing roots and fit together like mismatched jigsaw puzzles. They have to stop every once in a while when the road ends to clear away debris from yesterday’s thunderstorm. Bellamy doesn’t let Clarke join in on the lifting, even though some of the branches are well within her limits. She allows him this indignity if only because she knows it’ll calm him to take care of her, and the last thing they need when heading into dangerous territory is a Bellamy that’s more stressed than he needs to be. 

The heat forces Clarke to discard Bellamy’s jacket well before noon. It’s a wet, heavy kind of heat, and Clarke tries to appreciate it while she and Raven stretch their legs outside the rover as the others clear a path, because she knows she’ll be missing it come winter. The greenhouse is amazing, but it’s just not the same. She breathes in deeply, trying to capture the scent of rain and disturbed soil and air. Six years on the ground and she still hasn’t gotten sick of the taste of new air. 

At least clearing a path for the rover is bringing her people and Indra’s warriors together. The stiff lines of their grudging alliance are beginning to waver. Clarke smiles faintly as she watches Miller call out for one of the Grounders - Donovan - to wait for him to lift the other end of a fallen tree. Clarke eyes the young man’s profile. Donovan. The two burlier men are called Remi and Ristov, but they rarely take their bone-encrusted masks off, and Clarke doesn’t want to guess which is which. She has no idea what Indra’s second, a willowy young woman with an auburn red braid, goes by. She really should have been making more of an effort to make personal connections with them all. It’s good for politics, and, barring that - even well-trained warriors hesitate a second longer when ordered to kill someone they’ve grown fond of. Clarke’s smile fades as she thinks of it. 

_No_ , she thinks sternly. _We’ll find a way out of this together. No one will need to kill anyone._

Otherwise, everything goes smoothly until Bellamy and Indra agree to stop for a late afternoon lunch. Too smoothly. When Raven opens up the sack of provisions in the back of the rover and screams in shock, part of Clarke thinks, _ahh, there it is_. She grabs her handgun and lurches to her feet - a little uneven - but all the urgency fades when she sprints around the rover and finds the dirty, glowering face inside the sack. Clarke lowers her gun. The adrenaline takes longer to dissipate, and she still feels lightheaded as she meets Madi’s gaze. 

“Ah,” Clarke says, holstering her gun. “So that’s why I didn’t see you when we set off.”

Monty peers over Clarke’s shoulder as Madi begins untangling herself from the sack.

“Are you from the village?” he asks, and he probably means the Trikru border town they just left this morning, but Madi sets her jaw stubbornly. 

“The one that was attacked, yes,” she says. 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Bellamy says, reaching forward to help her crawl out of the rover. “It could be dangerous. No, it _definitely_ will be dangerous.”

“Trikru warriors her age have already seen battle,” Donovan says with just a hint of smugness as he crosses his arms over his chest. “Of course, if _Louwada Kliron_ weren’t such pacifists…”

“” Madi snarls at him. Clarke turns on her heel and steps into his space so forcefully that he takes a step back even though he’s a head taller than her. She jabs a finger into his chest. 

“You,” she hisses. “Are _not_ helping.”

“We can’t afford to take her back, can we?” Bellamy murmurs to Indra. “We’re already running out of time to stop that army.”

“You can’t take me back,” Madi says, jumping in. “You’d be stupid to. You said you were going to my village. You know nothing about the territory. You know nothing about my family’s murderers. _I do_. I know where to hide, where the best views are, I know which of those  was giving orders.”

Her fists shake at her sides as she finishes delivering her impassioned speech. Madi looks so young, so small surrounded by armed adults, and yet - Clarke recognizes something of herself in the furrow of her eyebrows and the all-consuming _need_ to do something. 

“We’re not actually considering taking a child into a war zone, are we?” Monty hisses at the others. Clarke reminds herself that he’s a father now, that of course this is going to hit him harder. 

“What are we supposed to do,” Bellamy says. “Leave her here? Is that better?”

Madi fixates on Indra, who hasn’t said anything yet but draws glances from the warriors waiting for her orders with the mere weight of her authority. _Smart kid_ , Clarke thinks, _Picking up on that so fast._

“,” she says, staring at Indra with a burning intensity on her face. “.”

Silence. Then - 

Indra draws a spare dagger from her belt and spins it around, hilt-forward. She holds it out wordlessly and Madi accepts it with both hands, relief etched plainly onto her face.

“We break for food and move on,” Indra says to the rest of them. “Bellamy is right. We are running out of time.”

Monty grabs Clarke’s arm as the others move to disperse. 

“You can’t be on board with this,” he hisses. “How old is she? Twelve?” As old as Charlotte was, when she died. Clarke draws him aside. 

“I’m not,” she says quietly. “We were only a little older when we were sent to Earth - “

“And look how well that turned out!” Monty snaps. 

“I wasn’t finished,” Clarke says flatly. “Do you remember what that was like? Do you remember when the rest of the Ark came down and the adults told us not to do the things we were so sure had to be done?”

Monty rocks back on his heels, his face angry and conflicted. 

“She’s going to follow us into this war anyway,” Clarke says, trying to make her tone gentle. “The best we can do is keep her close and hope we can protect her.” She waits a beat, and when Monty’s brow remains furrowed, she touches his arm hesitantly. “Is it… is it different since you became a dad?”

He glances down at her stomach and away so fleetingly she might have missed it if she blinked.

“Some father I am,” he says morosely. “Leaving Harper and everyone behind, with no way to tell them why we haven’t come home. Fuck, Clarke, I thought we were done with war.”

“We _are_ done,” Clarke promises him fiercely. “We’re stopping this one before it starts even if it kills me. You and Miller _will_ go home to Jordan.”

\- four and a half years earlier

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Bellamy’s voice pulls Clarke out of a blank space she hadn’t realized she slipped into. She’s been doing that lately. She can’t call them daydreams when they’re not really about anything. She just keeps waking up realizing hours have passed and there’s nothing but a blank wall in front of her. She looks down to buy time and sees the beginnings of a sketch in the margins of the nutritional health textbook she’s reading up on for Monty. The lines are faint and uncommitted but she thinks it’s the strange angle that boy’s neck made when her bullet hit his jaw. Clarke coughs and flips the book shut before turning around. 

She puts her hands in her pockets as she examines Bellamy. He looks gaunt and tired underneath the fluorescent lights, but then, they all do. It’s hard to believe they spent their whole childhoods under fluorescent light and are struggling so much to return to it. They took to the sunlight so well it might have been hidden somewhere in their DNA, waiting for the stranded generations to pass. Still, it’s Bellamy. He always looks beautiful to her. Covered in mud or blood or snarling at her, he’s still beautiful.

Bellamy finally steps over the threshold into the medical ward. His face is both curious and apprehensive as he takes in the beds against the walls, the silent and sterile equipment waiting the past century to be needed. Clarke wonders if he’s noting the similarities to Mount Weather, like she did, if it’s making his skin crawl just a little. Eventually his gaze falls on her and she’s pinned in place by it as he approaches, his footsteps so soft and careful that she feels like prey.

“You were avoiding me,” he repeats. “Weren’t you?”

“There’s a lot of work to do,” Clarke says at last. Her voice sounds hoarse, and she hopes it’s only from disuse and not another sickness. 

“And there’s a lot of hands willing to help,” Bellamy says pointedly. She’s not going to pretend she’s the only one who is doing anything. Monty has nearly half their people carefully tending the nutrient mixture that will feed the hydroponic farm this winter - and in turn, feed them. Raven is leading a crusade to replace lightbulbs and batteries and fried electronics throughout the bunker, Murphy has claimed the kitchens as his domain, and still others are laundering the sheets and taking inventory of the clothes in storage that still have their original fold lines. Everywhere they turn, the bunker needs some kind of work. In a way it’s been a blessing. Something to think about that is not the echoes of Mount Weather. 

Clarke shakes off her thoughts and stands up. Her role in the buzzing hive of their tiny civilization is healer, and that’s what she’ll do. _Healer and part-time bad guy_ , she thinks as she walks to the cold room. She returns with a burn ointment that’s only ninety years past its expiration date. What could go wrong?

“Can you take off your shirt, or do you still need help?” Clarke asks. Bellamy shrugs off his jacket with only a minor wince and then hesitates. 

“The skin still feels a little tight,” he says. 

“This will help with the inflammation,” Clarke promises, shaking the burn ointment at him. She steps closer without thinking as he gingerly lifts the hem of his shirt up, and her cheeks warm as she helps him ease it over his shoulders. He lets out a soft groan of relief as he lowers his arms. Clarke pushes at his bicep until he takes the cue to sit on the nearest cot so his shoulder is under her eye level. The burn is healing well, especially considering how little bedrest he acquiesced to. Clarke unscrews the ointment’s cap with deliberate care to avoid looking anywhere else.

“I heard about Octavia,” Bellamy says quietly as she scoops ointment onto her fingers. Clarke’s head jerks up, but he doesn’t turn to look at her. His profile is melancholy. “And what you did to secure the bunker. Which one of those conversations are you afraid of?”

_Both. Neither._

At the first touch of the cool ointment against his peeling skin Bellamy shivers, and Clarke observes the muscles in his back with a fascination that feels distant from her. It’s easier to break him into parts. Into the muscles she learned from an anatomy textbook and later on what passed for an operating table at the dropship. Into individual hurts and scars.

“Do you remember…” she murmurs. They’re alone in the medical ward but speaking aloud still feels terribly vulnerable. This is a conversation for whispers. “After - after Mount Weather. When we said goodbye at the gates?”

“How could I forget?” Bellamy asks, his voice brittle. 

“I didn’t want to go. But it felt like the only choice.” Clarke says, rubbing circles just over his collarbone to work the ointment in. His skin is scorching hot beneath her fingertips and she tells herself it’s just the extra blood flow. The body is a miracle in orchestration. It doesn’t know what it wants or where it’s going. It only knows it needs to heal. 

“Clarke, I don’t understand,” Bellamy says, turning underneath her hands. 

“I’m sorry,” she stammers. “No, forget it - “

“ _Clarke_ ,” Bellamy says, grabbing at her hand. She closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to see him looking at her with so much tenderness and despair in his dark eyes. 

“I think,” she says carefully, “that we should just focus on our responsibilities to the village for a while.”

 _Is it still a village after it’s burned down?_ she wonders distantly. _Do we still have anything tying us together?_

Bellamy drops her hand. For a moment there is only the sound of the air scrubbers whistling softly behind the vents as they wind up for a new cycle. Clarke opens her eyes and finds Bellamy staring at the floor between them, the muscles in his jaw working as he grinds his teeth. Part of her wants to tell him not to do that, remind him that she’s no dentist. If there was any doubt that he wouldn’t understand what she was really saying, it’s gone now. He understands. He understands her better than anyone. 

“I thought…” Bellamy murmurs. “After the fire, I thought things had changed.”

“They did. I’m sorry.”

He lets out a sigh and shakes his head. He deserves better than her, and Clarke knows there are more than a few people in the bunker in love with him. He deserves someone like Gina, who is closer to his age and has kind eyes and has probably never murdered anyone.

“The only thing I regret is being half-unconscious the first and only time you kissed me,” Bellamy says, in a light tone that probably wouldn’t sound forced to anyone else. Clarke inches closer involuntarily, unable to see pain and not attend to it. She rests her hands on his thighs, hesitant and possessive and guilty all at once. Bellamy draws in a sharp breath.

“We could still…” she trails off at the heavy look in his eyes.

“Clarke…” he says with a pained, bitter huff of laughter. “You have no idea how many mornings I woke up next to you wishing we’d done more than just sleep together. But…” He gently takes her hands off his thighs and raises them to his mouth. Clarke curls her hands into fists as his warm breath spills over them. “I don’t know how to do things halfway,” he murmurs to her hands. “Especially not with you.” He kisses her knuckles and then pushes her hands to her chest, gently, but firmly enough that Clarke takes the cue to step out of the angle of his knees.

“No, you’re right,” she says hollowly. “It’s not fair.” _And you deserve better._ Her scratchy throat closes up on itself, threatening to choke her.

“Am I good to go, doctor?” he asks quietly. She nods because she’s not sure she can say anything else without breaking in two. Bellamy slips off the cot and grabs his discarded shirt. He winces when he raises his arms to put it back on, but Clarke doesn’t offer to help this time. She watches him walk to the door with a roar between her ears that sounds almost like the pounding of ocean waves. Maybe that’s why she hasn’t been sleeping well. It’s quieter underground.

She should tell him to come back tomorrow for another application of the ointment, to keep resting, to take care of himself, but she doesn’t know how to say those things without the love she’s trying to hold back, or if he’d even want her to. She pushed him away. She doesn’t get to decide how much of him is hers now.

At the doorway, Bellamy stills, and she feels a traitorous hope as he looks over his shoulder.

“You’re my best friend,” Bellamy says roughly. He struggles with unspoken words for another moment. “Don’t be a stranger.”

The tangle in the back of Clarke’s throat recedes ever so slightly. The ocean pulls back. Clarke exhales and feels the relief weigh down every limb.

“I won’t,” she says. She still misses him when he goes.

\- four and a half years later

“He looked dirtier than that,” Madi tells Clarke as she shades in the side of a shaved head and adds shadows to longer strands of hair combed onto the other side. 

“His face?” Clarke murmurs. 

“And his hair,” she says, pointing to the longer part. “It was really greasy. Like he hadn’t washed in weeks.”

“Clarke had hair like that once,” Raven says, and Clarke gives her an unimpressed look over Madi’s head. “It was a bad time for everyone,” Raven continues, unabashed. 

“He’s not like Clarke,” Madi says sternly, bringing their attention back to the drawing in Clarke’s lap. “You could see the evil in his eyes. He _laughed_ when he killed my neighbours.”

“We’ll find him,” Clarke says quietly. She’s just not sure she should make any promises about what happens when they do. 

“Looks like Donovan’s back from scouting,” Raven says, drawing their attention to the Trikru warrior melting out of the forest’s shadows. Clarke slips off the rover’s hood and then helps Madi down. Raven gets down a little unevenly and limps her first few steps forward, but Clarke knows better than to acknowledge it. The long days of driving have taken more of a toll on Raven’s back than she’s willing to admit.

“Well?” Madi asks imperiously, crossing her arms over her chest and staring up at the warrior that’s twice her size. “Did you find everything exactly where I told you it would be?”

“More or less,” Donovan says grudgingly, unhooking his skull mask so his report isn’t muffled. Their mismatched crew of delinquents and Trikru gathers close to hear what he’s found. “Kid was right. They’ve taken Shenandoah village as their home base. At least twenty, no more than thirty. Mostly men, all of them carrying Skaikru guns.” At this, Donovan gives Clarke and Bellamy a lingering suspicious look.

“We don’t know who they are,” Clarke points out for what feels like the hundredth time. 

“,” Donovan says dismissively. “Anyway, they look like they’re taking orders from one woman. If there’s any Louwada alive there, I didn’t see them.”

“What about the man with the greasy hair?” Madi demands, grabbing Clarke’s sketchbook and turning it around to show them the rough sketch she’s made from Madi’s descriptions. Donovan squints at it. 

“He was there,” he says grudgingly. “Peeling nuts in a corner and throwing them at the little guy.”

“I don’t give a fuck about the people,” Raven says. “They’re murderers, they’re not going to sit down for tea and tell us their life story. If we want to find out where they came from, we’re going to have to look at the ship they came in.”

“It’s a big lump of metal,” Donovan says, gesturing rudely in the direction of the forest. 

“It’s a big lump of metal with software and logs that’ll tell us who’s in charge and what they want,” Raven says sweetly. Donovan grunts and doesn’t respond. They haven’t gotten to the chapter that covers software in the Skaikru-Grounder cultural exchange. 

“Raven’s got a point,” Clarke says. “We need to know why the hell they came.”

“And how do you plan on getting close?” Bellamy asks Raven pointedly. Clarke sees her face shutter and go cold and hard. She puts one hand on Raven’s arm.

“Enough,” Indra says. “If you want information, we will go hunting for a prisoner. Those of us who are not battle-ready…” Indra says, her eyes trailing over Raven, Clarke, and Madi. “…will guard the rover.”

“But - “ Madi says, drawing the knife Indra gifted her. Indra grabs her wrist and pushes the blade back into its sheathe. 

“You will have your chance,” Indra says, almost kindly. Then she straightens up and cuts the air sharply with her hand. Her warriors snap to attention at once and follow as Indra stalks into the forest. Bellamy reaches into his pack and draws out one of the short-range radios. 

“We’ll keep you in the loop if we can,” he says. “If someone comes your way, don’t hesitate to move the rover. We’ll find you.” He squeezes Clarke’s shoulder and then he’s gone.

“Not a fan of this plan,” Raven says, but she sullenly takes the radio and stands at Clarke’s side as the others - Miller, Monty, and Emori - all head back into the forest. 

“Me neither,” Clarke mutters. She unzips Bellamy’s jacket so she can splay one palm against the traitorous curve of her stomach. She’s not used to not being the one who runs headfirst into everything, and for a moment she’s angry at the baby for turning her into a liability, and then it passes with a wave of guilt. 

“Clarke,” Raven says. “You know I’m right. It’s not enough to save Arkadia if we just kill all those guys. We need to be able to prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they aren’t Skaikru, and right now they’re relaxed, they think they’ve conquered the whole valley. As soon as they realize Bellamy and Indra and the others are in the forest, they’ll go on high alert, and it’ll be a lot harder to get into that ship.”

“What are you suggesting?” Madi asks suspiciously. 

“None of us want to be sitting here babysitting the rover,” Raven says. “Madi, you said you know this forest better than anyone. Do you think you can sneak us into your village?”

“Yeah,” Madi says without a shadow of hesitation. “I know all the best hiding spots.”

“Bellamy’s going to kill us,” Clarke murmurs. 

“Does that mean you’ve already decided we’re going?” Raven asks.

“Yeah,” Clarke admits with a wince. “You’re right. We need answers.”

Raven limps over to the back of the rover and throws the doors open. She rummages through her toolbox for a few moments before deciding what to throw into her pack, as Clarke checks the ammunition in her rifle and Madi radiates impatience at her side. Clarke turns the volume on the radio down so it won’t give them away if Bellamy calls in, and then they’re ready to go. They follow Madi into the forest, and Clarke’s heart lodges in her throat.

\- four years earlier

That winter inches past nearly as slow as Clarke’s time in solitary confinement passed. In a way it’s not so different. Their bodies are together but everyone is dreaming of the surface, lost in their own frustration and claustrophobia. Bellamy breaks up at least one fistfight in the cafeteria each day. People leap at the chance to leave the bunker for hunting. Clarke points out to Bellamy, once, that they don’t need as much protein as they bring back, since Monty’s farm is flourishing. He tells her it’s not about the meat, and they leave it at that.

Clarke drifts aimlessly from task to task, trying to be needed somewhere. She and Bellamy are… co-leaders. Friends, when they’re not alone in a room. But there are too many lingering silences, the distance between them - the distance she put - always present and aching. She misses him and she knows she doesn’t deserve to. It’s better to make herself busy than to wish she could have changed something in the past.

When the medical ward is quiet - and it usually is - Clarke itches to clean it for something to do, but even at her most restless she realizes they shouldn’t waste the sterile solution. She lasts a week in the kitchens before Murphy kicks her out, complaining she’s impossible to teach. She digs up a ladder and half-coagulated cans of paint from a maintenance closet and paints the ceiling of the cafeteria sky-blue. She dabs in fluffy clouds with a crumpled-up rag until her neck aches. When she climbs down the ladder and takes it all in for the first time, she realizes it looks so fake and child-like she’s ashamed to have it up on display there. Some of the delinquents tell her they like it, but she doesn’t really believe them. 

One day Raven grabs her by the wrist and hauls her down corridors she hasn't gone down before. There's only one set of footprints in the dust here, a round trip with a left foot that drags a little. Clarke stops dead in her tracks when they turn the corner and she sees CREMATORIUM on the wall in tiny metal letters. There's no one memory that rises up in her that she could blame the sudden revulsion in her stomach, just incoherent snatches, an overlay of every terrible pound of flesh she's ever felt responsible for. Raven tugs on her wrist harder.

"Why are we here?" Clarke asks in a small voice.

"I need the letters," Raven says brusquely, pulling a crowbar out of her pack and slapping it into Clarke's hand. "I need the C, one of the Rs, the O and the E intact. The rest of them we can just chip off."

"I don't - " Clarke tries to say.

"You're not even a little curious about how good it would feel to wail on a wall?" Raven interrupts. "Come on, Clarke, get me my letters. It'll all make sense."

The C pops off easily, tinkling when it falls to the floor, leaving only a slight stain on the wall and a few ancient globs of industrial glue. The first R shatters, but Raven seems pleased when she picks it up and turns it this way and that. It's hard work, trying to jam the crowbar in and get some leverage underneath the letters, and Clarke's arms ache from the awkward angle by the time they're done, but between the both of them they manage to pry off all the letters. Raven sorts all the pieces by some unknown criteria and ambles off into the crematorium room, leaving Clarke standing outside, still completely confused as to what the point of this was and wondering if she's just supposed to go now. The heavy silence of the empty corridors between her and the rest of the delinquents makes her follow Raven inside.

Visually, there is little similarity between the bunker's crematorium and the Ark's airlocks. Clarke hadn't given it much thought, but of course the bunker's creators had planned an airtight existence from womb to tomb, not wandering in and out from the surface as the delinquents do. There's a small, refrigerated morgue off to the side, a wooden bench for a few mourners to sit, and a hatch in the wall at about knee height where the fire would be. And that's it.

"Close your eyes, I didn't bring a spare visor," Raven says, readying her blowtorch. Clarke obediently closes her eyes, and light flashes behind her eyelids. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but finding Raven welding some of the smaller broken bits onto the bottom end of the C to turn it into a G wasn't it. She doesn't piece it together until Raven arranges the letters in order.

FORGE. With an F born out of one of the broken Rs. Raven flips up her visor and grins at Clarke.

"Genius, isn't it? I'm going to take us out of the stone age," she asks, clearly already quite pleased with herself. "The only thing is, I didn't think as far as reattaching them to the wall. I was too excited about this part."

It's stupid, but Clarke almost cries when they replace the letters outside the door. FORGE isn't long enough to cover up the faint stain of CREMATORIUM on the wall, but it feels so good to be making something new out of a place meant for death. Raven knew exactly what she was doing when she made Clarke come along and help.

She shadows Raven more often, after that. Clarke is still not exactly useful there. But Raven is one of the only people who never feels like the air between them needs to be filled up with words. And Clarke likes it. The solitude without the solitary. She sits next to Raven and learns which wrenches to pass when. Sometimes Raven explains what she’s doing. Replacing that circuit and this breaker. Rerouting power from a dorm they don’t use so the load on the batteries isn’t so large. Grounding a poorly-installed appliance. Sometimes Raven asks for a story from the Ark, about what Alpha was like. Sometimes, more rarely, she volunteers one of her own. But usually, it’s just companionable silence. 

The days blend into each other, one endless smear of dull anticipation for a spring that doesn’t seem to be coming, until Monty corners her. 

“I want to build a greenhouse,” he says, and Clarke stares blankly at him. 

“Is there something wrong with the farm?” she asks, dread already building up inside her as she thinks of everything that could go wrong with the hydroponics and all the systems she doesn’t understand, the crops they’ll lose, the hungry mouths, the weeks of relentless winter still left ahead of them - 

“No, it’s fine,” Monty says, blinking. “It’s not for plants. It’s for people. Look, we can remove the glass from the bathrooms in the executive suites, and there’s some plumbing near the surface I can tap into so we’ll be able to heat it year-round with hot water. The bunker won’t be fallout-proof anymore, but it’s not like there’s going to be another apocalypse, and…”

He keeps talking, and Clarke doesn’t understand. He stops in the middle of an earnest explanation about how he wants to plant fast-growing greenery first, and touches her shoulder. 

“Clarke, what’s wrong?”

“You’re sure the farm is okay?” she insists. 

“Yeah,” Monty says. “This… The greenhouse’s contribution to food production would be pretty minimal. I just…” he shrugs helplessly. “Have you looked around lately? Everyone’s feeling super depressed. We need some time in the sunlight or we’re going to get on each other’s nerves even more. I want to build this greenhouse and I think everyone should be required to spend at least one hour in it a week.”

“Okay,” Clarke says. “I trust you.”

It only takes them two weeks. 

Clarke steps in for the first time, kicking snow off her boots, and is hit with a wave of warm air and the overpowering scent of rich soil. The sky is as gray and lifeless today as it’s been every other time she’s poked her head out of the bunker, but it doesn’t seem so terrible with the insulating glass between them. Monty takes her hand and leads her around, showing her the ficus sapling he’s been tending in his own bunk till now, the green bean and marigold seedlings that are already sprouting tiny green beginnings, the herb garden off to the side he’s planted for Murphy. Clarke forces herself to pay more attention to him than the dark thought she can’t prevent that this glass would be so easily broken in an attack. 

When Monty is distracted by other delinquents, Clarke finds a quiet corner that doesn’t have anything planted in it yet and lies down in the dirt. Nearby, a pipe at knee-height radiates a pleasant heat. She hasn’t felt so warm in weeks. It feels like it’s thawing something frozen deep inside her. She stays there for at least an hour or two, listening to the gurgle of water through the pipes and the murmur of Monty’s voice, watching the daylight through the beads of condensation that gather and trickle down the glass panels around her. It smells green. It smells almost like the first time they walked off the dropship and breathed new air. This - this feeling is what she tried to paint onto the cafeteria’s ceiling, and Monty nurtured it to life all on his own.

Clarke can’t wait to see what he grows. 

She bumps against his shoulder on her way out.

“You were right,” she murmurs. “This was what we needed.”

His answering smile is the first touch of sunlight. Outside the greenhouse the air bites at her ears and nose as she makes the minute-long trek back to the bunker’s door, but the cold doesn’t sink in as deep as it did.

\- four years later

The strangers' ship is an ugly, blocky thing, its metal casing old and pockmarked by space debris. It squats on the outskirts of Madi's village among snapped tree trunks and crushed vegetation. It looks like the little crabs who used to scuttle over Clarke's feet when she went swimming in the ocean early in the morning... if those crabs were several magnitudes larger, dark gray, and radiating industrial menace. On its side, half-obscured by greenery and scratched by age, the name GAGARIN is painted in yellow block letters, and below that, PRISONER TRANSPORT. There's only one entrance that Clarke can see: a lowered ramp where the crab's mouth would be, guarded by two armed thugs with more muscle than they look like they know what to do with. Clarke dutifully notes their position on the sketch she's making in her sketchbook and draws a tentative dotted line past trees she thinks they might be able to sneak behind.

"I checked the Ark's manifests when I was looking for parts to fix that pod I came down in," Raven mutters. "There wasn't a Gagarin on the list, and there definitely wasn't any room for it to be hiding anywhere. This doesn’t look like anything I know."

"That was what, six, seven years ago?" Clarke asks, flipping the page and starting a new sketch of the nearest man's gun. She's not the expert Bellamy is, but she's pretty sure it's bigger than any of their rifles, and that's probably bad news. "You remember that?"

Raven's face goes sad and distant.

"I still dream about the Ark," she says, wistful. Clarke looks back down at her sketchbook, knowing better than to pry deeper. 

"I don't see the man with the dirty hair," Madi hisses. Clarke rests a tempering hand on her shoulder.

"One thing at a time," she says. "Remember? Raven's plan depends on them not expecting anything."

"Do you have any ideas for getting past those guards?" Raven asks.

Clarke presses her lips together in a tight, frustrated line. The two men guarding the door don't look particularly committed to the task: one is leaning his head back against the ship's wall and trying to doze. The other is flipping a coin and catching it mid-air with the sort of casual ease that comes with years of practice. Both look like they would welcome an interesting distraction - unfortunately, any violence would be too loud and put the strangers on alert. Everyone's dressed in variations on the same gray-brown overalls and Clarke briefly entertained stealing some and trying to blend in, but Donovan was right about nearly the entire camp being men. They caught a glimpse of a woman with blonde hair pulled back in a low ponytail, and an Asian woman with a slighter frame, but it doesn't matter. Clarke and Raven just don't have the build to pretend to be one of them, not even from a distance, let alone Madi.

Which leaves them stuck in the bushes, just meters away from their goal and still so far.

"None yet," Clarke says. None that wouldn't arouse suspicion. "You?"

"...No," Raven says reluctantly. "Maybe we should retreat out of hearing range and call Bellamy. Maybe they can give us a distraction."

"All right," Clarke says with a sigh, already dreading the moment Bellamy finds out they put themselves in danger like this. These sorts of things are so much easier to justify after the fact, when she's succeeded and proved the risk was worth it. 

“We’re giving up?” Madi demands. 

“We’re reassessing,” Clarke says, grabbing her hand and pulling her deeper into the bushes. Raven winces when she stands up, and she grabs onto the nearest tree for support for a moment. Her first steps are small and clearly painful.

“It looks like the same thing to me,” Madi says through gritted teeth. 

“I promise they’re not,” Clarke says absently, but she’s a lot more focused on Raven. “Raven?” She waves Clarke off and marches away, her limp less visible. Clarke bites her lip and wishes her friend wasn’t so afraid of vulnerability.

They’ve only gone a few meters deeper into the forest when they stumble upon the man. Literally - he’s lying in on his back in a patch of long grass shaded by an overhanging tree. Raven nearly steps on him and Madi lets out a small, startled shriek. The man is a little slow to respond, clearly blinking away the lingering traces of his nap, but Clarke sees his eyes dart between their faces, sees the moment it sinks in that this isn’t a dream and they’re not his people. He lifts himself on his elbows and scrambles backwards, eyes widening. 

It’s too close to the village for a bullet. They’ll be heard and everything will be over.

Clarke swings her rifle off her shoulder and hits him in the head with the butt with all the force she can muster. Even that impact feels deafeningly loud, but it doesn’t manage to knock him unconscious. The man groggily tries to sit up again and Clarke kicks him in the temple.

“The knife, Madi,” she hisses as he crumples. When she turns, Madi is clutching Indra’s dagger in one shaking hand, her face contorted with fear and disgust. 

“I can’t…” Madi says. 

“It’s okay,” Clarke says soothingly, one palm up to reassure her as her other hand gently takes the dagger. “It’s okay. You don’t have to look.”

Raven draws the girl closer to her and covers her eyes with one hand, but Madi pulls it down and puts on a brave face. It’s enough to make Clarke hesitate - but she can’t let this man wake up and tell his leader what he saw in the woods. And if he was complicit in the slaughter of Madi’s village, it’s hardly like she’s killing another innocent. Still, she makes it quick, and lets his head loll to the side where the gash in his neck won’t be visible to Madi.

“We need to go,” Clarke says, wiping the dagger off on her pants and handing it back to Madi. She hesitates only a moment before grabbing it in a white-knuckled grip. She doesn’t sheathe it. 

“Hey, Falk?” a gruff voice calls out from behind them. Raven grabs Clarke’s wrist and starts limping further into the forest. “Falk, was that noise you? You sounded like a little girl.”

Clarke feels out of breath almost instantly - it’s been a while since she was running around forests, and the baby’s weight in the cradle of her hips doesn’t help matters at all. But however uncomfortable she feels, Raven’s clearly worse off. She lags a step or two behind Clarke and when Clarke sends a desperate glance over her shoulder, she sees Raven’s face twisted and pale with pain. Behind them, an alarmed cry rises up as someone discovers the body. _Falk_ , Clarke thinks. _He had a name_. But it doesn’t matter now. 

“Madi,” she gasps. “We need to hide somewhere!”

“I know a cave!” Madi says. “Follow me!”

Raven stumbles on the next step with a muffled cry of pain, and Clarke stops to haul her arm over her shoulders. 

“Is it close?” Clarke asks desperately. 

“Yes, just over this rise,” Madi says.

“You should go,” Raven half-sobs.

“ _No_.”

“Clarke - “

“Not leaving you behind,” Clarke says, setting her jaw. Something in her voice must tell Raven not to argue, or else she’s decided it’s not worth the effort. For the next few minutes as they half-run, half-stumble, there’s only the sound of snapping twigs under their feet and distant shouts in their wake and their own frantic panting. Raven crumples again when they leap from a jutting rock onto a bed of moss below it and doesn’t completely manage to swallow her keen of pain. “Madi, that cave better be close,” Clarke warns. 

“It’s here,” the girl says, grabbing Raven’s other arm. She’s too short to offer much support but they hobble forward like some misshapen three-legged creature until Clarke sees the dark mouth of the cave’s opening. As far as hiding places go, it’s not ideal. The cave isn’t very deep or large, and the mouth of it is too wide, too noticeable. But the strangers are coming, and they’ve already proved themselves willing to kill. Clarke helps Raven lower herself to the ground and grabs Madi’s shoulders. 

“You have to keep running,” she says fiercely. 

“What?” Madi asks, wild-eyed. 

“You said you know these woods,” Clarke says, the desperation and fear she’s been trying to keep at bay finally seeping into her voice. “You can stay ahead of them.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Madi says, and Clarke - Clarke understands what that’s like. For some reason she’s viscerally reminded of running out of her cell in the Skybox, certain she was about to be floated, only to stumble into her mother’s arms and be told she was sent away. She remembers clinging to Abby’s sleeves, afraid to go on alone. She knows exactly what she’s putting on Madi. 

“We’ll try to catch up,” Clarke says. “But you have to run, now, just in case. Please, trust me.”

“I’m not brave like you,” Madi says. 

“You are,” Raven says roughly, and when both of them turn to look at her, she raises her chin. “You came after us, didn’t you?”

“Okay,” Madi says nervously. “Okay, I’ll go.”

She turns to look at them one more time at the mouth of the cave, and Clarke’s heart leaps to her throat. She hears a distant shout from the woods, a man, a monster, and she becomes convinced Madi is going to be caught right in front of her eyes. She doesn’t start breathing again until Madi finally turns and runs out of view. 

“You’re an idiot,” Raven says, letting her head fall back against the rock behind her. 

“I’m four months pregnant, Raven, right now I can’t run much faster than you can,” Clarke snaps, and she lets herself collapse at her side. Raven finds her hand and laces their fingers together, squeezing tightly. 

“Maybe they won’t find us,” Raven says. 

“Maybe they will,” Clarke says. The cave’s stone is cold and more than a little damp. It’s starting to seep in despite the warmth of a summer day outside. Clarke zips Bellamy’s jacket up to her collarbone and pulls her pack into her lap. She pulls out the short-range radio and lets it sit in her hand for a moment, sighing heavily. 

“If you don’t get it over with, I will.”

Clarke gives her a look and turns it on.

“Bellamy,” she says, raising it up to her mouth. “Bellamy, come in.”

To her relief, the radio crackles with static just a moment later.

“Clarke?” he asks. “Everything all right? There’s a ton of these guys in the forest of all of a sudden, keep an eye out.”

She closes her eyes. 

“We may have gone off on our own,” Clarke says. Outside, the shouts are getting louder. Closer. Raven squeezes her hand tighter. “I sent Madi away, but we can’t keep up. You have to find her - “

“ _Clarke_ ,” Bellamy says. “Where are you?”

“Hiding in a cave,” she answers. “If we check in later, we’re fine. If we can’t, well. We’ve been found. Look, Monty was right, they’re not Skaikru. The ship, it’s like nothing we’ve seen before - “

“ _Where the hell are you?_ ” 

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Clarke says desperately. The sounds outside their cave are louder and louder. “If we get caught, don’t come crashing in guns blazing to rescue us. You’re outnumbered and outgunned.”

“You’re my _family_ ,” Bellamy snarls. “Like _hell_ I’m not coming for you.”

“Use your head, Bellamy, you can’t win by force,” Clarke hisses. Her heart drops like a stone to her stomach as she hears pebbles skittering down the stones outside. “We have to go,” she whispers quickly into the radio over his protests. “Bellamy, I love you.”

It’s too dangerous to wait for a reply, no matter how much she aches to. She powers the radio off and stuffs it back into her pack. Raven is trembling. Clarke grabs her arm and hides her face in Raven’s shoulder. Neither of them even dare to breathe. 

“Colonel!” an unfamiliar voice calls just outside the mouth of the cave, and they both flinch as one. “Come look at this!” 

Footsteps. Clarke grabs her rifle and clicks the safety off. Just as she raises it, Raven grabs her elbow. She shakes her head. _What?_ Clarke mouths. Raven’s hands gently push the barrel of her rifle down. Her eyes are sad and eons-old as she continues to shake her head. Clarke lets her lower the gun and swallows hard. 

The woman with the scarred throat walks into the shadows, flanked by two hulking, scowling men in the same gray-brown coveralls they all wear. The armoured vest she’s wearing looks bulletproof, and Clarke reluctantly lets the gun drop and raises her empty palms.

“Well,” the woman says in a low, throaty voice as she crosses her arms over her vest. “It’s good to see that you can be reasonable. The other one just tried to stab us immediately.”

 _The other one?_ Clarke thinks, struck dumb with fear. Bellamy would have said something on the radio if one of them was captured, wouldn’t he? Or do they mean one of the original villagers?

“Reasonable’s not a word most people use to describe us,” Raven mutters, and Clarke shifts so she’s shielding her. 

“You can stop looking at me like I’ve kicked your favourite puppy,” the woman says. “We’re not going to kill you just yet. Get up.”

“My friend,” Clarke says reluctantly. “She can’t walk - “

“Then she can crawl. At gunpoint, if necessary,” the woman says flatly. Clarke glares at her as she pulls Raven’s arm over her shoulder and heaves them both up. Raven bites back a quiet moan of pain. They shuffle out of the cave and Clarke feels the stares on the back of her neck, is painfully aware of their guns. Whatever happens, she doesn’t want to be shot in the back. She wants to see it coming. The Commander of Death doesn’t deserve much in life, but she thinks she deserves that. 

“I can help,” one of the strangers waiting outside the cave says, holstering his gun and stepping forward. 

“Don’t touch me!” Raven snaps as he reaches for her, snatching her free arm out of his grasp. He looks younger, slighter than the others, and his face is… not friendly, exactly, but open. Genuinely unhostile. Clarke doesn’t buy it. She doesn’t look like a killer, but she knows what she’s capable of. The man raises his palms non-threateningly. 

“It’s a long walk back to the village,” he warns. 

“We’ll manage,” Raven says, already sounding pained.

 _Oh_ , Clarke thinks with despair. _I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this one._

\- four years earlier

Peter comes looking for them the day of the last snowfall that winter.

They don’t know that it’s the last snowfall at the time. They only know that it’s been coming down relentlessly for weeks, always whitewashing the sky just when they begin to hope winter might be over and spring will come at last. The temperature is a little bit above freezing and half the snow melts as it hits the ground, leaving it muddy and treacherous under foot. 

When the delinquents bring Peter in, each of his arms slung over someone’s shoulders to keep him from pitching forward from exhaustion, Clarke doesn’t immediately recognize him as one of the original delinquents who chose to stay behind at Arkadia with his dad. Under all the mud, he looks like a stranger. 

“He was headed towards the old village,” Harper explains, jogging to keep up with Clarke as she leads everyone to the medical ward. “He’s lucky we ran into him.” _He is_ , Clarke agrees. He wouldn’t have found anything by the ocean but the burnt-out skeleton of their first attempt to rebuild what they had at the dropship. “I tied his horse up in the hotel above us, is that okay?”

“That’ll be fine,” Clarke murmurs, her mind already racing ahead to wonder why he’s here now.

Someone brings food and water without her asking, and Clarke is quietly pleased at the way the delinquents move now, not like cogs in a machine but like bees in a hive, rising and ebbing to form one. She wets a towel for Peter to wipe his face and rubs soothing circles into his back as he struggles to drink a glass of water while also trying to explain something about the Grounders - 

“Slow down,” Bellamy says, appearing on his other side, and Clarke gives him a fleeting smile, grateful one of the delinquents thought to get him. “It’s all right. You’re safe here.”

“Arkadia,” Peter gasps out, before Clarke gently takes the glass in his trembling hand and raises it for him. He drinks like a man lost in a desert before coughing again and wiping his mouth. He gets mud all over his cheek but no one dares to point it out. “Wait, where’s the horse? He’s Octavia’s horse, she’ll kill me if - “

“He’s safe too, we’re taking care of him,” Harper says quickly, just before Bellamy crosses his arms and narrows his eyes. 

“Octavia’s at Arkadia? Why?”

“She stayed back,” Peter says, the words spilling out of his mouth. “They picked me to come warn you because I’m not much of a fighter, my asthma - “

“Warn us about _what?_ ” Clarke says. When he looks at her with wide, startled eyes, she realizes she’s squeezing his shoulder tight enough to be painful and releases her grip. 

“Pike declared war on the Grounders,” Peter says. “All of them. He’s gotten - I don’t know, he’s not like he used to be. Not everyone agrees. Kane started a coup and everyone was fighting and I don’t know how it ended. Octavia and Lincoln grabbed me and told me to _go_. She said we need fighters, we have to stop Pike - “

“I have to go,” Bellamy says roughly. Clarke is already looking to him when he turns towards her, his eyes wide and angry and panicked and pleading. “Clarke - “

“I know,” she says, and she finds some bittersweet relief in the fact that they can still guess what the other is thinking even after - well. After she walked away from their maybe. The anger is for himself, for not being there already, for letting Octavia go all those weeks ago. The guilt in his eyes, that’s because he doesn’t want to leave their home, not when they could be in danger too. The silent plea in the tilt of his head, that’s him telling her he’ll stay if she asks him to. “I’ll stay. You go see who’s willing to go.”

He gives her a single, sharp nod, all the doubt melting out of his shoulders in an instant.

“I’m coming,” Harper says quickly, grabbing his arm. “I am _not_ passing up the chance to shocklash Pike’s fascist ass.”

Bellamy and Harper depart in a hurry, already murmuring to each other about ammunition and the fastest routes. Peter lurches off his cot and stumbles two steps after them until Clarke wrestles him back into bed. 

“You’re in no condition to go running back to Arkadia,” she tells him sternly. “You delivered the message. You’ve done your part, we’ll handle it from here.”

Peter sags in her arms, his whole body shaking. 

“I knew - I knew you’d fix it,” he says, his head lolling against her shoulder as he looks up at her. “You and Bellamy, you always save us. My dad… do you think he’ll be okay?”

Clarke puts the tray of food in his lap instead of answering. If he’s right and Pike and Kane really are leading Arkadia into a civil war, people are going to die. That’s the simple truth of it. No matter who wins in the end and whether or not the Grounders take offense and get involved, someone will die. It might be Peter’s father. It might be Kane or Abby. It might even be the friends Bellamy is recruiting right now. 

She looks at Peter and smiles. 

“It’ll be okay,” she lies. “We’ve survived everything else.”

He must be eighteen now. He was one of the older delinquents when they landed on Earth, but the year and a half they’ve lived here don’t seem to have touched his naivety. Sometimes these things don’t correlate with age. He smiles back at Clarke, a full, toothy smile, and salutes her with a spoonful of warmed beans to show her he’s started eating. He just needs rest, so Clarke pats his leg and leaves. She can hear the fervor of activity in the cafeteria from down the hall and hurries her steps. 

When she rounds the corner, Bellamy is just stepping off a chair, having apparently finished a speech, and there’s no chance of elbowing her way through the crowd of delinquents descending on him now, demanding more information and offering their help in equal measure. Clarke scans the cafeteria, noting the faces that are afraid and angry and ready to march to Arkadia this very instant, and the ones that are withdrawn and reluctant. Her gaze lingers on Monty, who is picking out a gun from a pile in the center of the room and weighing it in his arms. 

“Hey,” Clarke says, walking to him quickly. “Monty. What are you doing?”

Unlike the others, his face is strangely blank as he slings the gun over his shoulder and meets her eyes. 

“My mother will follow Pike into hell if she has to,” he says simply, and Clarke feels a wave of nausea when she imagines Monty caught between the two sides of the civil war. Hannah Green won’t be an easy person to save. Not after she watched so many of Farm Station die at Azgeda’s hands.

“Monty…” Clarke says, feeling helpless. All she can think about is the way he cried when they paid their entrance into the bunker with blood. 

“It’s okay,” he says unconvincingly. “Time to find out what kind of person I am.” 

So she’s not the only one remembering that conversation. Clarke lurches forward and hugs him tightly to her. 

“A good one,” she whispers into his ear. “No matter what happens.”

He hugs her back, and then pats her back awkwardly when it becomes clear she’s not willing to let go. Harper and Miller approach with guns of their own. 

“Don’t worry,” Miller tells Clarke. He slings an arm over Monty’s shoulders just as Harper takes his other hand and squeezes. “We’ll protect him.”

“You’re going too?” Clarke asks. Miller shrugs.

“I think Pike’s kind of got a point,” he says. “But putting people in danger, that’s not how to keep them safe.”

“Water is wet,” Harper jokes, and Miller drops Monty’s shoulders to grab Harper into a headlock and mess up her hair. Clarke backs away, trying to ignore the ever-growing dread settling in her stomach.

Bellamy catches up to her at the door. When Clarke’s lower lip starts to tremble, the mask of strength and fury falls off his face and he cups her cheek with one warm, callused palm. His thumb drags against the mole above her mouth and for a moment Clarke forgets everything else. She forgets the Grounders and the civil war and the room full of people around them. There’s just Bellamy, and he’s so close she thinks he might kiss her. 

She thinks she might want him to, even if it’s selfish and terrible of her. 

Then he drops his hand roughly and steps back, looking awkward and unsure. 

“Be safe,” he says, and then he’s swallowed up by the crowd of armed children.

\- four years later

The stranger shadowing Clarke gives her an unexpected shove forward as the cell doors slide open. Half of her brain instinctively tries to land along the length of her forearms to break her fall and shield her stomach, like Bellamy taught them years ago. The other half forgets to let go of Raven, and the end result is a painful tangle of limbs that drives all the air out of Clarke’s lungs. She hears Raven make a small whimper and then go silent, holding her breath so she doesn’t make any other sounds. 

Clarke scrambles back up to her feet and glares at the man who shoved her. _Greasy hair_ , she realizes. It’s the one Madi hates. The colonel called him McCreary. She fantasizes about finding some way to get back at him as he chuckles at her, so confident in his strength, such delight in their pain, but they were thorough in their search. They even found the tiny utility knife Raven keeps in her brace. 

McCreary lingers in the doorway, so sure he can fend off whatever escape attempt she might make that he’s in no hurry to shut them in. That, or he knows that Clarke won’t run without Raven, and is taunting her. Her skin prickles as he leers at her. She gets the sensation he’s looking at her as an assembly of pieces of meat. Not a human but a thing to hurt. It scares her that he doesn’t hide it, so she glares at him, trying to mask her fear with hatred. 

“That’s no way to look at your generous benefactors,” McCreary murmurs. “Say, _thank you Paxton_ , and I won’t teach you manners the hard way.” Clarke’s stomach drops as he lifts the remote in his hand and waves it tauntingly. Her fingers fly up instinctively to graze the metal collar that sits cold and heavy around her neck. 

“Clarke,” Raven says urgently. “ _Clarke_ , there’s - “

She turns reluctantly to see Raven rolling a limp body onto her back. Dark, stringy hair slips off the body’s face as her head lolls to the side. Clarke makes a choked sound of shock. She’s older, gaunter than she was the last time Clarke saw her, but even under the dried blood crusted around her mouth there’s no mistaking that face.

“ _Octavia?_ ” she asks. Raven already has her fingers pressed above Octavia’s matching collar, searching for a pulse underneath her sharp jaw. 

“She’s alive,” Raven breathes. 

“That one tried to stab me, twice,” McCreary says from the doorway. “In case you were wondering what the hard way is.”

Clarke glances over her shoulder at him, desperation making her chest feel too tight for her lungs. 

“Please,” she begs, knowing it’s no use, knowing he’ll laugh in her face. “Can you get me a medkit? Please, I need to help her.”

“What are you, a doctor?” McCreary mocks. 

_Arrested before I finished medical school, technically_ , Clarke thinks, _but I probably have the field experience of your average pre-apocalypse trauma surgeon by now._

“ _Yes_ ,” she says desperately, and McCreary’s creepy smile drops from his face. Clarke never would have imagined she’d miss it but his face is somehow worse when he’s serious. There’s something hungry and determined in his eyes that makes her breath hitch, makes her recoil from the looming shadow he casts in the open doorway’s light. He’s still staring at her with that frightening urgency when he takes a slow step back and closes the door. Raven puts her head in her hands as the metallic _clank_ seals their fate. Clarke only keeps staring at it in disbelief. 

“This is my fault,” Raven whispers. 

As a general rule, Raven doesn’t apologize. She just doesn’t. When she feels guilty about something she’ll deny it to the end of time and bury herself in a project to make up for it. Hearing her say this now is as shocking if one day Murphy got up in front of the entire village and announced that he genuinely likes them all. Knowing it’s true is different from having it put into words.

They could blame Raven for coming up with this plan or Clarke for agreeing it, or blame Indra for dragging them into this mess or Arkadia for being too weak to fix it themselves, or Lexa for pointing her army towards the easiest target that will sate their bloodlust. Or you could blame the people who really knocked their civilization out of its fragile peace.

“You didn’t make them land in this village and start killing people,” Clarke says at last. Raven clutches her head and groans loudly. 

“Okay, Reyes, think,” Clarke hears Raven murmur to herself. Clarke stands up carefully and adjusts Bellamy’s baggy jacket. She catches a faint trace of his smell, an earthy scent that makes her think of a long day of hard work, and tries to hold onto the small comfort it brings as she measures out the extent of their cell.

The only light that comes into their cell is through the grate in the door. Five by five small paces. Three wooden benches, too hard for any rest. Four walls, the door with no handle. Raven’s mumbling follows her into every corner. “They must have some kind of control bridge, that would be ideal, but a craft this size is going to have EV terminals. If I can reboot the system into emergency mode I can break the root password, but - no, there’s no way a regular terminal would have reboot privileges. I need… I need…”

Raven stiffens and Clarke backs up to stand by her and Octavia’s unconscious body as they hear footsteps coming down the corridor outside. The light through the grate flickers as silhouettes pass in front of it. A _beep_ , and the door slides open. 

McCreary is back with the woman with the scarred neck. 

“Come with me, doctor,” she says, her eyes sharp, and curious, and just barely holding back that same nervous hunger that McCreary was so blatant about. When Clarke doesn’t move, the colonel raises the remote in her hand. “You can come with me, or you can stand there glaring at me until I shock your friends, and then you’ll come with me after all.”

What else can she do? Clarke goes with them.

\- four years earlier

Bellamy and his recruits are gone a week before the silence drives Clarke mad. She told him she would stay here, watch over their people and their home, but this bunker survived the apocalypse unscathed. If war with the Grounders really has erupted and if it comes to their doorstep, she’ll order them to seal the vault and wait. Between Monty’s farm and the canned rations they can survive in here for years. It won’t be a pleasant time… but they’ll survive. 

She starts packing her bag. Warm, waterproof clothes, rations, a medkit that takes up the bulk of her bag. The handgun Bellamy’s more or less bequeathed to her, and enough ammunition to carve a hole into an army, if that’s what it takes. She needs to know what happened. It was stupid of her to let them go in the first place, and - and she never told Bellamy. She never told him.

Raven throws open the door just as she’s double-checking her map, trying to decide between the route that will be fastest on foot or the one Bellamy would have taken with the rover. Clarke jumps up, startled, and then immediately tells herself she doesn’t have to act so guilty. She’s not doing something wrong.

“Patrol radioed in,” Raven says breathlessly. “They’re on their way back.”

“How many?” Clarke demands. Raven hesitates. 

“Most of them,” she admits at last, and Clarke crumples on the spot, her knees giving out beneath her. Raven rushes to her as a hoarse sob tears itself free of her throat. “Hey, hey,” Raven says, kneeling with her though it must be painful, gathering Clarke into her arms and pressing her cheek against her hair. “Shh. I got you. Shhhh.”

“I should have gone,” Clarke gasps between racking sobs. Her lungs don’t belong to her anymore, no more than a tiny boat on a storming sea belongs to itself. She tries to hold her breath to slow it down and finds even that beyond her grasp. “I _let_ them, and now, if they’re hurt - Raven, if _he’s_ \- “

“Shhh,” Raven says, rocking her gently back and forth as the cold from the cement floor slowly seeps into them. 

“I never told him I love him,” Clarke chokes, and Raven lets out a startled, despairing huff of laughter. 

“You’re a mess, Clarke, you know that?” she says almost affectionately. “You can tell him now - “

“ _No_ ,” Clarke says forcefully, grabbing at Raven’s elbows. “No, he can’t know, you can’t tell him, promise - “

“Clarke,” Raven says sternly. “We don’t live easy lives. You have to tell people while you still can, we don’t know how much time we get.”

“I don’t - “ she says, still trembling. “I’m a monster. I’ve killed so many. If he’s okay, that’s enough. That has to be enough for me.”

Raven groans aloud, grinding the heel of her palm into her forehead. The rap of knuckles against the door makes them both startle and reach for each other. Clarke takes a deep, rattling breath and tries to center herself.

“What is it!” she calls out, her voice only wavering a little. 

The door opens and there he is. The cuts and bruises are the first thing she notices. He cleaned the blood away but the split lip and the scrapes along his cheekbones still remain, the scabs new and tender-looking. Clarke’s sobs return with a vengeance as she pushes herself up to her feet and staggers into his arms. 

“Are you all right?” Bellamy murmurs into her hair, clutching her as desperately and tightly as she’s holding him. His face looks like it’s been used as a whetstone and she can feel him wince when she squeezes his ribcage too tightly and she’s sure there are other injuries hiding under his clothes, but he’s here, and he’s alive, and he’s warm and solid and he smells like Bellamy, like blood and earth and sweat. The world could end again and she wouldn’t be scared if she was breathing in that familiar smell. 

“You’re the one with all the injuries,” Clarke answers, pulling back just far enough to look at him. Raven claps a hand on his shoulder. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Raven says, and Bellamy just stares at her for a second, lost, like he doesn’t know how to respond to that without lying. Raven hesitates and slips past them. “I’ll… I’ll see you two later,” she says, and then the door closes behind her and Bellamy’s shoulders sag with exhaustion. 

Clarke cups the less injured cheek with her palm and examines the scrapes. They’re shallow injuries, and they’ve already started healing. Best she can do is convince him not to pick at the scabs as they do their work. Still, seeing him so beat-up is frightening and strange. He’s dangerous when he wants to be, she can’t imagine what warrior could have gotten close enough to hurt him like this. She burns with questions about Arkadia and Pike and the civil war, but Bellamy’s eyes are glassy and distant.

“I know we’re not - “ he murmurs, faltering as her thumb gently brushes the constellation of freckles on his cheek. His eyes close and his eyelashes tremble, tickling the tip of her thumb. “I know you don’t see me that way anymore, but could I stay with you tonight? _Please_ ,” he begs. “I’m afraid to be alone right now.”

Clarke swallows hard. 

“Of course,” she whispers, and she pushes the map and her sketches and the travel pack off the bed and pulls him in after her. His movements remain slow and unsure as he lays down next to her and she draws the blanket up to their shoulders. He’s shivering very slightly, and Clarke shuffles closer, pulling his arm over her waist and tucking his head under her chin. A moment later, she feels dampness against her collarbone. Tears. He wasn’t shivering, after all. Clarke rubs slow, wide circles into his back and rocks them as he cries silently. 

The story comes out in bits and pieces that night, as he slips in and out of a restless, feverish sleep and needs to tell her about it.

“I couldn’t stop Pike from killing him,” he sobs, his fingers bent into claws that grasp at the back of her shirt. “When Pike finally surrendered, Octavia was about to kill him, and I told her not to go down this path. And - and she said I’m dead to her.”

What do you say to that? What can possibly soothe that hurt?

Clarke can only hold him and cry along for the ones they’ve lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've gotten a lot of comments on the past few chapters along the lines of "I don't know which timeline to stress about more!" and they made me cackle because I knew this chapter would be happening. *kronk voice* it's all coming together. But next chapter, things start going uphill for our happy ending.
> 
> Feels weird posting about this version of Diyoza having heard the recent spoilers, but I went and rewatched parts of season 5 to make sure I wasn't writing her as too much of a dick, and no, she was canonically a huge dick at this point. I love her.
> 
> Thank you if you're still reading after I basically dropped off the face of the earth! Speculation about what happens next/what happens in the gap between the two timelines is very welcome and encouraged, some of you have been getting really close especially with Octavia guesses. Also @ the person who said they were expecting more of a slowburn but supposed it was over now that they had kissed.... you underestimate my ability to drag things out another 20k words, you have no idea how hard I cackled and I couldn't respond to your comment out of fear of spoiling everything.


	5. a prisoner since she has been a daughter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CONTENT WARNINGS:** imprisonment, threats of torture, a reference to restraining orders and I guess unhealthy relationships?? not sure how to word that.

#

\- four years later 

McCreary and the colonel lead Clarke out the ship and into the village. They don't blindfold or handcuff her, but this doesn't seem like an oversight so much as it seems unnecessary. With the collar around her neck and the switch in the colonel's hand, what's she going to do? How far is she going to get before she's convulsing on the ground? Still, just in case, she mentally traces the ship's turns and corridors as they pass. Her heart falls at every additional pressure door and sentry they encounter. This won't be an easy escape. 

Outside the ship, strangers turn and gawk as Clarke is marched past. She stares them back, refusing to let them see her cowed. McCreary nudges her off-balance to remind her who's in charge and Clarke's hate for him only increases. They take her inside one of the houses, and Clarke's eyes rake over the colourful ribbons and windchimes hung in every corner. Candles on the windowsills. Wilting flowers in a bowl. Bloodstains on the floor, half-heartedly wiped away. She's only vaguely aware of McCreary grumbling as the colonel tells him to fuck off and leave them alone. Did Madi know the people who lived here just a few days ago? Did any of them make it out to mourn whoever's blood was spilled on the threshold? Was it someone standing their ground, trying to buy time for the others to run?

"What's your name, doctor?" the colonel says as she sets the switch for Clarke's shock collar on a table next to a bottle of amber liquid. Clarke says nothing, and the colonel pointedly taps the switch's casing. "I'm Charmaine Diyoza. This conversation will go by faster if you participate in it."

"Clarke."

"Clarke," Diyoza says with an air of satisfaction. She pulls out a chair and sits, then gestures for Clarke to join her. She keeps standing out of spite. "You were the one who killed my man Falk, weren't you? That was a good cut you made. Quick death. Couldn't have done it myself," Diyoza says, reaching up and tapping the thick, ropey scar on her neck with a quiet huff of laughter. "You knew exactly where to find the artery. I should have known you were a doctor or a killer."

"I can be both," Clarke says, and Diyoza smiles. She lazily reaches for the amber bottle on the table and unscrews the cap. 

"Have you ever had tequila, Clarke?"

A sudden flash of memory. For a second she's seventeen years old and waiting out the acid fog in a half-buried car with Finn and Octavia and Wells. The whiskey burns when it hits the back of her throat and the taste of vinegar takes hours to fade. 

"I've had whiskey," she says quietly. "Wasn’t great. I like my friend's moonshine better."

Diyoza pours two small shots and Clarke stares at the one that's supposed to be hers. She doesn't want Diyoza to know she's pregnant - more importantly, she doesn't want the news to spread to the rest of her camp and those hungry, curious eyes. Diyoza raises her glass and her eyebrows. 

"This might be the last bottle of tequila on the planet. Are you really going to turn down this treat?"

"I don't toast murderers," Clarke lies. Diyoza throws back her shot and hums. She sets the glass down with deliberate care. 

"I am a murderer," she says matter-of-factly. "If it eases your mind, I never killed anyone I didn't think deserved it, and I didn't kill your friends in this village." She must catch the disbelieving tilt of Clarke's head and smiles bitterly. "Trust me. I'm not stupid enough to make enemies so quickly. I ordered Shaw to land us by this village for answers. But McCreary and a few of his closest friends had other ideas. They were a little too eager to start shooting when the locals pulled out swords."

"Yeah, I'm sure you feel really bad about it," Clarke says.

Diyoza rolls her eyes. 

"You try herding a ship full of criminals and see how well you do," she says, and neither of them expect the laugh Clarke chokes out. "Something funny?" Diyoza asks as Clarke covers her mouth.

"Long story," Clarke murmurs. "A very long one."

"Fine," Diyoza says, toying with her empty shot glass. The front door opens and Clarke skitters back, putting the table between her and the two figures who come in. McCreary, and a massive man with a square face and an empty gaze who smiles quite amiably at her. Clarke's gaze darts to the collar that sits on his neck and back up to that empty, pleasant smile. "Clarke, this is Vinson. Your first patient. Diagnose and treat his lung infection, and we'll discuss the release of you and your friend. Refuse, and I'll have McCreary bring her here so you can hear her scream. So what are you going to be today, Clarke? The doctor, or the killer?”

Clarke's stomach twists painfully. She may loathe the idea of helping them, but she can't let them hurt Raven any more.

"The doctor," she mutters, feeling the word scrape its way up her throat in a way it never has before. Diyoza smiles.

"The equipment you'll need is already on its way."

"Is anyone having that tequila?" Vinson asks politely. 

"Knock yourself out," Diyoza says, passing the shot Clarke refused. The glass looks comically tiny in Vinson's hand, and it does nothing to make Clarke feel safer about being left alone with him.

\- four years earlier

A silent grief lingers in the bunker’s halls like a noxious cloud that dampens conversation and makes everyone move gently, like they’re fragile. Clarke does her rounds like a nurse trying to triage. She doesn’t stay with any one person long - save Bellamy - and when she tries to think who needs her help most, what she should do, her head just feels clouded with cotton balls. She tries to check in on Monty and Miller stops her before she can knock on their door. Tells her Monty and Harper aren’t coming out from under the blankets today. 

She hasn’t thought of the Skybox in months, but she thinks of it now. Clarke was thrown into her cell less than fifteen minutes after she’d seen her father floated. She spent most of that first week in isolation curled up in the furthest corner of her cot from the door, half-asleep, too exhausted to get up and explore the confines of her cell, too full of grief to let her thoughts go still long enough to actually rest. It wasn’t comfort, but it was the closest thing she could find to it. A temporary removal from a turn in life she wasn’t ready to acknowledge. 

So when Miller tells her they’re trying to sleep, Clarke understands. She understands too much. She looks at the shiny bruise on Miller’s temple and the bags under his eyes that are nearly the same colour and she has what’s probably the most well-stocked medbay on the planet right now and nothing is enough to fix her people. 

“Can you tell them their door isn’t locked?” Clarke murmurs to Miller. 

He nods, but his face is blank and confused. She wants to tell him about being trapped in that Skybox cell, alone with her grief. Wants to push past him and knock down that door and bring Monty to his greenhouse and show him the extra foot the green beans grew in his absence. They’ve got leaves the size of a human palm now and it’s all growing in boxes Monty nailed together himself and that has to mean something, doesn’t it?

But the bunker is too quiet for words. So Clarke puts on her winter boots and a warm coat and goes upstairs to the greenhouse to water the plants herself. 

It seems like the last place she’d ever find Raven. The air is hot and wet and musty. The strands that have escaped Raven’s ponytail are plastered to her temples and the sides of her faces in beautiful coils. Her eyes are red when she looks up and meets Clarke’s gaze, but surprisingly open. Clarke slides into the other seat. She knows better than to touch anything Raven’s still working on but she looks at the spools of cable next to her and the exposed circuitry of what looks like one of their short-range radios, its disassembled guts spilling out onto the map Raven has spread out underneath her work. Clarke’s eyes trace the path of pen-marked X’s from Arkadia to the bunker.

“Can I ask?”

Raven grunts as she attacks a jammed mechanism with a pair of pliers. 

“Can’t get a reliable AM radio connection over this distance,” she says shortly. “Too many trees and hills and leftover radiation. But I think I can build enough repeaters to open a stable relay channel to Arkadia. So we can stay in touch.” _And this never happens again_ goes unspoken. Raven taps one of the X’s. “These are high points. Hills or communication towers left over from before the apocalypse that might be serviceable.”

Clarke tilts her head and gives Raven’s proposed relay path a closer look.

“Most of these are on other clans’ territories,” she comments after a moment. 

“Well that’s your problem to deal with, isn’t it?” Raven responds. The words are sharp, as Raven sometimes is, but Clarke almost smiles. Sometimes she and Raven are more similar than they recognize. They both only know how to soothe themselves by being useful. Raven is, in her own way, sending Clarke a lifeline. 

“I’ll put it on the to-do list,” Clarke says. Raven stills like a deer caught in crosshairs when Clarke pats her wrist affectionately. She tentatively turns her hand, palm up, and Clarke slips her palm against it. A lot goes unsaid in that squeeze. Raven’s shoulders relax, and Clarke leaves her to her work.

That night, Bellamy stays up late pouring over notes on their inventories of food and munitions and the leaking tap in dorm B and chore schedules, even as his head is starting to drop.  
Clarke stands at his shoulder and imagines their grief like a massive bottomless canyon between them and the peaceful lives they so desperately want.

“We don’t have to do it all today,” she says softly. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“It was destroyed in one,” he answers, and the regret that blooms in his eyes almost instantly tells Clarke not to take too much offense. She takes a deep breath instead and offers her hand. 

“Are you coming to bed?”

For a moment Bellamy just stares at her extended fingers. He is so still and quiet that Clarke feels a wave of embarrassment and starts to lower her hand. She shouldn’t have assumed he’d want or need to sleep with her again, even if he clung so tightly to her last night as they cried. But before she can turn away Bellamy stands and embraces her. 

Everything feels at once new and familiar as they get ready for bed. Clarke takes the side of the bed against the wall, as she always used to do when they shared a bed. Even deep inside the bunker where nothing can reach them, Bellamy likes to be close to the door. The first line of defense. He turns the light off and the room is plunged into darkness except for the soft amber glow of the control panel by the door. It casts less light than the smallest of candles, just enough for Clarke to make out Bellamy’s profile in the darkness. She sees his eyelashes as he blinks and knows he’s not tired yet - no, that’s not right. He is tired. They are all so, so tired. But that’s not enough to sleep. 

Still. She’s glad he’s here. She likes his smell on her pillow. The way he radiates so much heat she’ll kick the sheets down to her ankles by morning rather than roll further away from him. She missed him terribly after - well, after she turned him away. The beds in the bunker are the most comfortable they’ve had in years, but she slept worse without him and almost missed the miserable days in Arkadia when they chaffed under the Ark’s authority but fell asleep to each other’s breathing every night. 

It’s about love, yes, but more than that. Clarke’s chest squeezes painfully as she watches Bellamy shift in the darkness to face her. The relief and belonging she feels now is at war with the guilt she still carries. 

“We never named this village,” Bellamy says out of nowhere, and it takes Clarke a moment to swim out of her churning emotions and parse his words. 

“I guess we didn’t,” she murmurs. “Do you have something in mind?”

He’s silent for long enough that Clarke thinks he might have finally fallen asleep. When he finally speaks his tone is so tentative and unsure.

“New Rome?” he says, his voice turning up at the end. “Because of the columns outside, and…”

“Building a little bit every day?” Clarke suggests.

“Yeah.”

“I like it,” she says, and Bellamy carefully shifts a little closer. She feels his chin bump against her shoulder, his breath warming her skin at the end of her sleeve. She has only known him for what, a tenth of her life? A fraction, but it feels like they’ve been orbiting each other for a lifetime. The problem with orbits is that they keep you close, but never closer. 

_I love you_ , Clarke thinks to the darkness. _I want to make the world treat you gently._

Two things begin that week, and they begin independently, but later they will be remembered as one. 

The delinquents come out of the bunker, blinking at the bright light of spring, and begin to build cabins in clusters on the crumbling hotel’s grounds, with Monty’s greenhouse as the heart of their new sunside village. The winter may have ended but warmth comes slowly. It rains often and it’s a miserable feeling but novel enough that very few of them run for shelter. Clarke’s hands are cold and stiff and white around the handle of a shovel, but she digs until she feels the strain between her shoulderblades when she crawls into bed next to Bellamy at night. She smiles with the raindrops streaming down her cheeks.

The second thing that begins: the newcomers from Arkadia. 

They appear from between the trees like ghosts, muddy and tired and full of hope as they ask to stay. Miller’s ex Bryan, bearing new scars on the side of his head, hastens to reassure Clarke that it’s not that he doesn’t want to live in an Arkadia led by Kane and her mother, but that the civil war exposed a lot of old, ugly wounds leftover from space. A new start in New Rome seems like the easier path than staying to see what’s worth saving in Arkadia. Clarke doesn’t know how she feels about that, but Bellamy opens up the unused dorms without a word, and she trusts him on this. 

There are three children among the newcomers, two young enough that they probably don’t remember either the Ark or the person Clarke used to be. They stare at her from behind their parents’ legs with quiet suspicion, and she stares back. There have never been children in New Rome. By the time they walked away from Arkadia, none of the surviving delinquents felt like children to Clarke. 

Jasper comes on the heels of the others, trailing in like a sleep walker. Clarke freezes when she sees him at the back of a pack. He turns his face towards the sky and makes no move to shield himself from the misting rain. He looks… peaceful. 

A nervous hush falls over the delinquents as Monty pushes his way to the front of the village. He stops several steps away from Jasper, his shoulders tense and hunched, and Clarke knows viscerally how it feels to want to come closer and want to run away at the same time. Jasper turns his face from the sky reluctantly, blinking raindrops off his eyelashes. 

“Hey, brother,” he says, and uncertainly raises his palm and slaps it. 

A heartbeat. Even the birds are silent.

Monty lurches forward and hugs him. Clarke remembers how to breathe at last.

\- four years later

Clarke chews her lip as she gradually sweeps Vinson’s ribcage with the sonogram. On the screen next to his stretcher she watches his lungs inflate and deflate. The sheer number of black voids scattered throughout the sonogram leaves a pit of dread in Clarke’s stomach. Vinson’s calm face displays no pain or effort as he breathes, but the rhythmic suction and release of fluid in each of those abscesses is going to kill him within the year without intervention.

The problem is that Diyoza ordered her to _treat_ his illness, not just diagnose it, and Clarke doesn’t know where to start. She’d need to make multiple incisions and break several ribs to get at his lungs, and a single accidentally-nicked artery might mean a bullet in her head. His chances of surviving such an invasive surgery might be higher in the bunker’s medical ward, but Clarke doesn’t even remotely consider the possibility of leading Diyoza and her people to New Rome.

As if summoned, the door swings open with a creak and the colonel strides in, her thumbs hooked into the belt of her coveralls. She comes to stand over Clarke’s shoulder and stares hard at the sonogram’s image.

“What’s the diagnosis, doctor?” she asks casually. Clarke sets down the imaging wand and holds onto the medical cart with both hands to steady herself.

“Lesions in the lungs,” she admits reluctantly. “Were you breathing in particulate or dangerous chemicals recently?”

“Hythylodium,” Vinson murmurs. Diyoza shrugs insolently.

“Deep-space mining,” she explains with a dry, bitter tone. “The execs didn’t particularly care whether or not a bunch of hardened criminals already deemed disposable by society had breathing equipment that was up to code."

"Sounds familiar," Clarke murmurs to herself as she flips between several snapshots she took of the sonogram's results to buy herself time as she thinks of something to say that will keep Diyoza from thinking she's useless and hurt Raven. Finally she decides to go all in. She powers down the screen and crosses her arms over her chest. Diyoza raises an eyebrow. "I diagnosed it, and he's not going to die in the next few hours. Let me take some supplies back to my cell, and then I'll keep working."

"Are you really in a position to make demands?" Diyoza asks her voice lazy, as though she isn't concerned with the answer.

"Do you want a good doctor that isn’t falling asleep on her feet, or just a doctor?" Clarke responds.

"Fine," Diyoza says, like it doesn't matter much to her at all. 

"Thanks," Clarke says, picking things up from the medical cart until she has an armful of first aid supplies. She clings protectively to them as she's once again marched through the village and back to her cell on the ship. 

There's a man leaning against the door when they turn the corner, his head turned slightly so his voice reaches the grate. 

"...by then the pollution was so bad I was replacing the intake filters every two weeks or so - " Clarke hears him say. It's the man from the cave, the one with the gravelly voice and sharp cheekbones who offered to help Raven walk. "Yeah, a carbon-fiber weave a buddy of mine gave me discounts on. Good stuff. Expensive as hell. But it was worth every penny. I had to drive hours just to see any stars, and the further I drove the more I felt like I was really living. There were so many people, and everyone was desperate - "

He falls silent and stands to attention when he realizes Clarke and her guards are approaching.

"When I try to fuck girls, Shaw," one of them says with a laugh. "I don't talk about my motorcycle."

"When you try to fuck girls, they get restraining orders," the man - Shaw snaps back. His eyes dart towards the grate. "Bye... Raven." 

Clarke watches the set of his shoulders as he marches down the hall in the opposite direction and almost wants to laugh. Raven fucking Reyes is finally learning how to fight dirty. She turns her attention back to the door just in time to catch the first two digits of the door code before her second guard notices her looking and shoves her back against the opposite wall. Clarke's stomach drops as the supplies in her arms clatter against the floor. She drops to her knees to gather them back safely into her arms and glares at the man as she stands.

Raven drops her raised fists as Clarke comes in and the door slides shut behind her. Raven hugs her awkwardly around the pile of supplies in her arms. When they pull apart Clarke looks past her to the furthest bench, where Octavia's body is curled up. Either she woke up while Clarke was gone, or Raven strained her back to lift her off the cold metal floor. Clarke hopes it was the former. She sets her supplies down and, after making sure the footsteps down the hall are receding, pulls the scalpel out of a wad of bandaging. 

"This is for you," she tells Raven. 

"Aw, you shouldn't have," Raven says sarcastically, even as she takes it and turns it over and over in her fingers, that bright and clever gleam returning to her eyes. 

"I figured you'd find a use for it," Clarke says. "Cut some wires or something. Or stab someone if they cause you trouble while I'm gone."

"What did they want with you?" Raven asks. 

"Doctoring. Some creep has lungs full of blood and if I save him they won't kill us," Clarke murmurs as she kneels next to Octavia's bench. Octavia's eyes weakly flicker open and Clarke is shocked by how vividly blue-green her irises are, especially against her raw red skin. It's been years since Clarke saw these eyes. "Hey," she says awkwardly. "What hurts the most?"

It takes Octavia a moment to respond.

"Got a few punches to the kidneys," she says hoarsely. "Been pissing blood for a few days. Might have cracked a rib, too."

"Can I do an examination?" Clarke asks, and when Octavia stiffly nods, she and Raven carefully peel her bloodstained leather jacket off and roll up her shirt. Clarke watches Octavia's face as she carefully prods at her bruised abdomen, finding the tender areas. As her fingers reach around Octavia's side they brush tiny, raised bumps. Dozens and dozens of them. _Kill marks_ , Clarke realizes, going cold. Octavia narrows her eyes and says nothing as Clarke falters. She forces herself to keep going and at last rolls down Octavia's shirt. "You'll live. I've got painkillers, if you want."

"Without pain, a warrior has no incentive to learn from her mistakes," Octavia recites. Clarke shakes her head and stands up, balancing herself on the other bench. 

"Offer stands, if you change your mind," she says.

"I won't."

Clarke crosses the cell to sit by the door with Raven, who has already started attacking the tiny crack between two metal panels with the scalpel Clarke gave her. Clarke leans her head against the wall and lets out an exhausted sigh. 

"Did the motorcycle guy tell you anything useful?" 

"Zeke," Raven says softly, her eyes wholly focused on her work as one corner of the metal panel begins to bend outward. "He told me about life before the apocalypse."

Clarke tilts her head.

"...before?"

"Cryosleep," Raven explains. "He was an aerospace pilot. Took a contract with some corporation called Eligius to fly a bunch of criminals out to the edge of the solar system to mine asteroids. There was a mutiny. Damaged one of the engines, so it took them a hundred years to fly back to Earth."

Clarke lets out a heavy breath. 

"That explains a lot. Fuck, how did the Ark not know about this?"

"I think they thought people would be better-behaved if they thought they really were the last humans left," Raven says.

"Yeah, that went well," Clarke scoffs. She suddenly gasps aloud as something inside her _shifts_ , a feeling unlike she's never had before. She reaches for her stomach and, finding the hard plates of the jacket's built-in armour, scrambles to unzip it.

"Clarke?" Raven asks urgently, kneeling down. "Did they hurt you?"

Clarke ignores her for a moment, pressing her palm to the curve of her belly. Raven and Octavia track her movements with concern and suspicion, respectively. After a moment with her hand presses to her abdomen, she feels it again. A _thump_.

"The baby kicked," Clarke murmurs.

"Baby? You're pregnant?" Octavia asks sharply.

"Oh my god," Raven murmurs, crawling closer. Clarke reaches for her desperately, grasping at her wrist and pulling her in. Raven's hand hesitates just above her belly, so Clarke pushes it down the rest of the way. Her hand is cold even through the fabric of the shirt but Clarke doesn't care. She needs Raven to feel it.

And then, after a long, breathless moment, the baby shifts again as though responding to the touch of its godmother. Clarke knows it doesn't work like that but she can't help but believe it. She's so overwhelmed with an emotion she doesn't know how to name that she feels tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, and she sees the same despair and wonder reflected in Raven's watering eyes.

"Oh my god," Raven murmurs again.

This isn't how Clarke thought it would happen for the first time. She thought she would be home, surrounded by friends, and the fact that she can't share this milestone with Bellamy - that she might die in this goddamn cell without him ever knowing she felt their child move for the first time - fills her with a burning sort of fury.

But Raven is here, at least, and for that Clarke wants to thank the whole universe.

"It's Bellamy's, isn't it?" Octavia asks, shattering the silence. "It has to be. You were always... weird about each other." Neither Clarke nor Raven answer, with Raven's expression turning a little nervous as she watches Clarke's face and waits for her to take the lead. A day ago, they didn't even know if Octavia was alive for certain. They'd hear rumours of Skairipa once a year or so, some shadowy killings when an agreement couldn't be found between clans that no one would take responsibility for. And now she's _here_. Octavia's voice is almost soft, full of awe as she tentatively asks: "I'm going to be an aunt?"

The hurt and resentment already building up in Clarke boils over.

"Last we ever heard from you, you told Bellamy he was dead to you," Clarke snaps. "So no. You're not an aunt."

"Clarke, that's harsh." Raven murmurs, and the anger flashes red-hot again. Raven didn't see Bellamy, after. She didn't hold him while he shivered his way through night after night.

"So's beating up your own brother," she responds, and Octavia doesn't say anything for a very long time. Clarke pulls Bellamy’s oversized jacket tighter around her shoulders and buries her nose in the lapels for comfort. It’s starting to lose his smell. 

\- three and a half years earlier

“Try this,” Murphy says, approximately 0.5 seconds before poking Clarke in the cheek with a spoonful of stew. She ducks away and wipes her cheek, then catches a whiff of it and opens her mouth obediently. The stew is a little too hot and her eyes water as she chews both from pain and delight. She tastes potatoes, and carrot, and what must be the boar that the hunting party brought in this morning, stewed so tenderly it falls apart in her mouth.

“Oh my god,” Clarke moans, covering her mouth and trying to savour that mouthful, knowing Murphy will chase her out of the kitchens in a moment and not let her have any more until it’s dinner time. 

“Does it need more salt?” he asks, watching her face closely.

“No, it’s perfect,” Clarke says, discretely reaching for the ladle. Murphy slaps her away before she’s even halfway. 

“You’re useless at tasting,” Murphy says. “You never give me constructive feedback.” He tastes the stew himself and licks his lips thoughtfully. “No, you’re right, I’m perfect. Now get out of my - “

The intercom clicks, interrupting him. They both glance up at the speaker inset in the ceiling with suspicion and concern.

"Is this on?" Jasper’s voice murmurs, and Murphy looks as confused as she is.

"Yeah, see this toggle?" Raven says, and at her voice Clarke already begins to relax. If Raven's approved whatever's going on, it must be fine. "Hi everyone, don't worry. Jasper and I are just having some technical difficulties." The intercom clicks again, and in the following silence the pot of pasta Murphy is making for the vegetarians begins to boil over.

_Click._

"Hi everyone," Jasper says. His voice is dreamlike, distant somehow. Something scrapes in the background. "I um. I still have this music player. From Mount Weather. And I thought I'd play her music - Maya's music - for everyone. Raven says every room in the bunker has a mute button next to the intercom panel, if you don't want to listen to me - "

"The panel should be next to your door," Raven interrupts. "If you're in a room with multiple entrances, it's the main door. Jasper's broadcasting on the bunker's original non-emergency channel, so if there's a Grounder attack or another apocalypse or something, you'll still hear all about that. Peace out."

"Thanks," Jasper says grudgingly. For a moment the channel is filled only with his quiet breathing, and Clarke imagines delinquents in their rooms and the halls and the cafeteria, their faces turned up towards the ceiling, waiting for him to go on. She wonders if they are curious, or already reaching for the mute. Wonders if anyone else feels like their chest is being crushed with some unnameable emotion. She looks at Murphy’s face and he is, as always, unreadable.

"This is - " she tries to say. 

“Probably good?" Murphy asks, and Clarke nods furiously, needing it to be true. 

"This is the first song Maya showed me," Jasper says quietly. "I'll take requests, once, you know, you guys actually know the songs. A lot of them are really sad, but, there are some nice ones in there too. For now I guess I'll start with my favourites."

 _Click_. Silence. Then, a trio of rising piano notes, soft and hesitant, melt into a more complex melody. Clarke is weeping before the first verse begins. 

“I’m going to go - “ she tries to say, and Murphy waves her on, his shoulders hunched, his eyes filled with his own ghosts. If she sees that they’re more watery than usual, they both know that stays in this room.

Clarke follows the ebb of soft chords from intercom to intercom all the way to the greenhouse outside. The glass door swings open silently at her touch and a wave of warm, moist air rushes over her. She stands at the entrance for a moment, as still as a statue. 

Jasper is nearly hidden by the thick, vivid vegetation but her feet carry her helplessly forward until she can see the sharp jut of his shoulderblades through a worn-out graphic tee as he sits with his shoulders hunched over a worktable in the far corner, facing the gardens on the other side of patchwork glass panels. The worktable is dotted with trays of seedlings and gardening tools and sound equipment alike. Waxy green bean leaves the size of an outstretched palm hang down above his head, shading him, their veins lit up from behind by sunlight. Maya's music player is plugged into a stand in front of him, the bright screen casting a trace of white-blue light along the edge of his face. He's wearing a pair of headphones that look so massive on his close-shaved, gaunt head that she's briefly reminded how ridiculous he used to look with those big goggles. As Clarke watches, hardly daring to breathe, the song ends and Jasper twitches to attention. 

He clears his throat and reaches for the microphone and when he speaks his voice is so quiet and hoarse and removed from the boy whose faith she killed. But he speaks and speaks and he does not stop speaking. He speaks about everything and nothing. The way the sunlight looks on the orchard trees outside his window, the way the drumbeats in the next song he has lined up echo a human heartbeat. He taps a button and, presumably, the song with the heartbeat begins to play on the bunker's soundsystem and in his headphones. For Clarke the greenhouse is silent except for the soft rustle of water misting over the vegetables again and Jasper's slow inhalations. He shifts on his stool and pulls one knee up to his chest, lacing his hands around it, and then as he listens to the song play he is still except for the subtle bob of his head. _Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump._

And finally Clarke bridges the two Jaspers in her mind. The bright young boy with the goofy grin and the chlorophyll-stained hands. The angry child-turned-soldier who can't let go of Maya's ghost. Here they are, and they were the same boy all along. Her music in his ears even as he carefully unlaces his hands and gently prods at the soil in the nearest tray of seedlings to check if it's moist enough.

Clarke wants to walk closer, let him know she's here. That she's heard. That she's so glad he's not drunk, that she hasn't seen him look this peaceful while awake in years. That she misses him like she misses her own innocence.

But Jasper doesn't want to talk to her. And it's enough that he's alive and found himself a home inside their home, a place in their community no one else could have filled because no one else would have noticed the missing hole. It wouldn’t have occurred to anyone but him to fill it with music.

It has to be enough. Clarke quietly backs away and leaves the greenhouse without disturbing him. Outside, she wipes away her tears with the back of her hand and moves on.

\- three and a half years later

“Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move,” Raven chants under her breath as Clarke squeezes her eyes shut and wills herself still. Her fear makes her want to curl in on herself, to duck her head and protect her neck, and she has to force herself to keep her chin up and tilted to give Raven the easiest access to the collar around her neck. The scalpel scrapes against the edges of the access panel Raven’s been trying to pry open and Clarke flinches, imagining it skidding off the collar and into her neck. “Don’t move!” Raven snaps, and Clarke gasps with relief that they didn’t just both get electrocuted.

Octavia watches their progress with narrowed eyes from across the cell. Raven digs in harder with the tip of the scalpel and Clarke grimaces as she feels the collar press against her windpipe. Then, a _click_ , and release. 

“Got it open,” Raven murmurs, shifting closer to get a better look at whatever she finds inside. “Wow, this circuitry is _tiny_.”

“Can you figure it out?” Clarke dares to ask with the scalpel so close to the collar’s circuitry. 

“Have you met me?” Raven murmurs. “The hard part is that you’re going to have to do it on me.”

Clarke groans at the prospect. 

“It’s probably just like surgery,” Raven says absently as she reaches in to pluck at something. 

“Surgery is easy, whatever you do is witchcraft,” Clarke says, and then gasps as she feels the tickle of a shock against her throat. Raven holds a tiny wire, just a few centimeters long, between two fingertips with a look of awe. 

“I think you’re free,” Raven breathes. “Okay. Shock collar disabled, give me a minute to take out the guts.” 

“How does this help - “ Clarke starts to ask, and Raven swats her arm. 

“Stop! Moving!” she hisses, and when Clarke looks appropriately contrite she twirls the scalpel between two fingers and leans in again. Her voice is distracted and trailing as she focuses. “I can… reach some of the wires… for the door’s control panel thing through the wall.” Clarke winces as Raven tries to leverage the scalpel between the collar’s circuitry and its casing to pry it out. “With this… might be able to fry it or send a false positive.”

“Just stab the next guy who comes in,” Octavia mutters.

“Got it!” Raven says, carefully setting the collar’s tiny circuitboard on the floor next to her. She closes the access panel and Clarke rubs at her sore neck. Hopefully this doesn’t come back to bite them. “Okay, now do mine,” Raven says, handing Clarke the scalpel and shifting so that her access panel is closer. Just then, they hear footsteps down the hall, and Clarke hastily shoves the scalpel back for Raven to slip up her sleeve. The circuitry stolen from her collar goes into a zipped-up pocket and they both try to put on innocent faces appropriate for the imprisonment they are most definitely not trying to escape from. 

Clarke waits for the door to open, for a voice to order her up and back to the makeshift medical center where she’ll scan yet another set of lungs full of blood, for rough hands to grab at her when she doesn’t move fast enough. 

Instead, a voice softly asks - 

“Raven?”

She jerks her head up. 

“Hi, Zeke,” Raven says, looking nearly as surprised as Clarke is. She nervously tucks a strand of hair that’s fallen out of her ponytail behind her ear and scoots closer to the door. On the other side, Clarke hears the quiet rustle of clothing that suggests Zeke is sitting too, mirroring her.

“You didn’t get to finish your story,” Zeke says. “About your mentor, Sinclair?” 

Raven’s smile, fond and sad and full of love, flashes and is gone in an instant. 

“All right,” she says, leaning her head against the door. “If you tell me more about what life was like before.”

Octavia groans and covers her face with one hand. Clarke shushes her with a glare and a meaningful look towards the door. So far, Zeke is the only person they have on the Eligius crew that could be considered friendly, and she’s not about to let Octavia’s disdain dampen Zeke’s obvious enchantment with Raven. Not when they might be able to use it.

Clarke lies back on one of the benches and lets her mind drift as Raven talks in the background, her voice soft and vulnerable and the words indistinct. She misses home. She misses eating the raspberries growing behind their cabin right off the vine for breakfast, the wine-red stains on her fingertips, the taste on Bellamy’s tongue as he kisses her good morning. She misses the soft pluck of music in the greenhouse and the deafening hum of crickets around the campfires and New Rome’s handful of kids playing soccer with the laundry line’s posts marking the net. Jordan shrieking with laughter in Grandpa Miller’s arms, his soft round cheeks streaked with dirt again. Murphy’s cooking. God, she misses his cooking. And… 

She rolls onto her side and presses her face into Bellamy’s jacket, breathing in deep. When she can’t smell him anymore, her blood turns to ice in her veins. She holds it closer, curling up until her thighs bump against the slow-growing bump of her belly. The baby hasn’t moved today and Clarke doesn’t know if that’s a mercy or a curse. She’d feel less alone, but she’d feel more afraid, too.

“You’re not like the others, Zeke,” Raven says, her voice only marginally louder than before, but the difference is enough to make Clarke wipe away her tears and sit up. “I can see the good in you. Help us. Help us get out, please. You can come with us.”

Silence. When Zeke speaks again there’s an edge in his voice that wasn’t there before.

“When I was a kid, after the battle of San Francisco, I watched the evacuation on tv. Thousands of refugees being packed onto aircraft carriers. I remember seeing soldiers pushing helicopters overboard just to make more room, and Diyoza was the one giving the orders. Because the machines were expendable and the people weren’t. But up in space, when we reported that the miners were getting sick… Order eleven came down. Bring the hythylodium home, leave the prisoners. Like they were garbage. Captain Stevens agreed, I didn’t.”

Clarke starts shaking her head. She doesn’t understand exactly what he’s saying but she can tell something is wrong, that he’s angry about something, and worse - Raven can tell too, because she’s covering her mouth with one hand and staring hard at the metal door between them. 

“You helped them mutiny,” she murmurs. 

“So Diyoza’s not as bad as you think, and… I’m not as good as you hoped.”

When they hear him stand on the other side, Raven scrambles up with a quiet grunt of pain as her stiff leg takes an extra moment to catch up to her command.

“Wait,” Raven says breathlessly. “Wait, Zeke - “

As they hear the footsteps receding down the hall, Raven bangs her fist against the door, once, twice, and Clarke grabs her wrist before she can keep going and injure herself. 

“Raven - “ Clarke says, and is startled into silence as Raven looks up, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes, her mouth turned down at the corners into a heartbroken pout. And Clarke realizes all at once that Raven wasn’t flirting to get something out of Zeke. It was real. It’s just been so long since she saw Raven really take an interest in someone that Clarke forgot how intensely she feels, how quickly she makes up her mind about people. “Oh, Rae…” Clarke whispers, and the dam finally breaks. Raven surges forward into her arms, sobbing, and Clarke holds her because she can’t do anything else to make this better.

From the other side of the cell, Octavia looks towards their embrace with her face halfway between jealousy and yearning.

\- three years earlier

Summer. It’s looking like it’ll be a cloudless night, and the stars are coming out one by one in defiance of a nearly-full moon. Someone impaled torches along the length of the field while Clarke was distracted and the firelight flickers over the rival team at the other end of the pitch and the thorny orchard that threatens to encroach on their game. In the falling darkness the hotel’s overgrown garden begins to thrill her. Clarke knows these grounds now like the back of her own hand. She helped roll broken white columns off to the side to make room for new cabins. She hacked at the orchard’s branches in an attempt to tame it with the rest of them. But in the changing light, the familiar silhouettes of her home become just a little spookier. 

Clarke’s heart beats fast not just from the exertion but also with the delight. 

Of course on Earth, a moment of happiness never comes without the memory of sorrow. She wishes Wells lived to see this. He’d love it, for one, and he’s the only other goddamn person who knows the plays as well as she does. 

She gives the team huddled at the other end of the field another glare and turns back to hers, hands on her hips. 

“All right, miscreants,” she says breathlessly. “We’re up one, but that lead won’t last if you keep congratulating yourselves like we’ve already won and letting another goal past.”

“Clarke, are you aware this is supposed to be fun?” Harper asks. 

“Winner gets dessert from Murphy,” Clarke reminds her pointedly and seriously. “This is a fight to the death.”

When Harper’s shoulders start to shake with muted laughter, Clarke feels her serious mask crack. She casts a quick grin at her team’s lineup and beckons them closer with one hand. Miller puts one arm over her shoulders and the other over Evans’, drawing them all into a tight huddle. 

“Miller gets the kick-off. Kath, you’re gonna take it up the pitch, Evans, Harper, defense. Miller you’re gonna follow her into enemy territory, Kath - you see the perfect opportunity for a goal, you take it, otherwise you pass to Miller or I. Are we going to win?”

“Probably?” Kath asks. 

“That is not the right answer,” Clarke says, jabbing her index finger into the center of their huddle. “ _Are we going to win?_ ”

“Hell yeah,” Harper cheers.

“Sure,” Miller says mildly. Clarke elbows him playfully and dismisses the huddle. 

She casts one more look over the pitch as Miller readies himself for the kick-off. The hotel grounds are fairly flat in the center once you get past the gently rolling hills at the far end of the garden, but their makeshift soccer pitch is ever so slightly tilted, and the ground is soft in places where they had to fill in soil after they removed some of the rubble. Clarke and her team played downhill for the first half of the game, which is technically an advantage, but uphill may work better for them now since she and Miller are going for the kill, and they’re strong kickers. The game has gone on long enough - and with enough competitive arguments over Clarke’s refereeing - that they’ve built up a crowd on the side of delinquents who are nursing tankards of moonshine and enjoying the nighttime cool. 

Clarke raises the hem of her shirt to wipe some of the shirt off her forehead and freezes when she sees Bellamy in their midst. Only now does she realize how late it must be. She was supposed to meet him to work out next week’s chore schedule at least half an hour ago.

A sharp whistle jerks her out of her embarrassment. Miller won the kick-off, and Kath is already starting down the pitch, pulling some fancy footwork to keep Monroe from kicking the ball away from her with a sharp slide that will leave grass stains on her hip. Clarke throws herself into the game after Miller, and the cries of encouragement and heckling from the onlookers fade into background noise. There’s just Clarke, the wind rushing in her ears, the stitch in her side, and the perfect arc of the ball as it soars through the air - 

\- and just past Emori’s outstretched fingertips. 

Clarke screams, throwing her arms in the air, just as Harper tackles her. 

“We won!” Harper is screaming too. “We won! We won, bitches!”

“Dessert!” Clarke yells back, plants a wet kiss on Harper’s cheek, and quickly extracts herself from her team’s congratulatory dogpile before it gets any worse. She jogs to Bellamy, out of breath and dizzy with joy, and is relieved to see him smiling almost as wide as she is. 

“I’m so sorry, completely lost track of time,” she says to him between breaths. 

“Don’t be,” he says, eyes soft as their friends cheer and raise tankards of moonshine up to the sparkling sky behind them. “Seeing you happy was more important than the chore schedule. It looks good on you.”

Clarke ducks her head, knowing the hot flush of blood behind her cheeks isn’t just from exertion. She laughs. Takes his hand. 

“In that case,” she says. “Do you want to be on my team for the next game?”

Bellamy’s eyebrows shoot up. 

“You don’t need to rest first?”

“No,” Clarke says, turning her face up to the sky. “It’s a beautiful night. I feel…”

 _Alive_. Thrumming with the miracle of it. She looks at Bellamy to find him gazing at her face instead of the sky. 

“I think I know what you mean,” he says quietly.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy says, leaning against her. “But I know you.”

\- three years later

“So what’s the plan, doctor?”

Clarke stares hard at the latest sonogram. Her current patient is gently snoring on the examination table, apparently completely unbothered by the imaging wand over his ribcage. 

“Depends how risk-averse you are,” Clarke says quietly, feeling trapped and helpless. Again she thinks longingly of her medbay in the bunker, of the incredible work she could do there with all her tools, but there’s no use wishing for it when she’ll never lead Diyoza’s people to her home. 

“Colonel!” a tattooed Asian woman calls out as she scurries through the door with a radio. “Colonel, someone wants to talk to you - “

“Who?” Diyoza asks, looking at the radio with a suspicious sort of disgust. Clarke is starting to learn her moods, the longer she is kept here. Diyoza values order and competence, and, finding very little of either in her crew of mutineers, always has the air of a woman who is in the middle of lowering her standards and wants you to know how much it pains her.

“Don’t know him,” the woman says, thrusting the radio closer to Diyoza’s face. She takes it with a subtle roll of her eyes and raises it to her mouth. 

“What?”

_Click._

“This is Bellamy Blake,” the voice on the radio says, and Clarke’s legs threaten to buckle underneath her at the sound of that familiar voice. When she closes her eyes she can picture him vividly. She hears the barely-restrained anger and knows his jaw would be tense, his mouth barely moving as he forces himself to speak calmly, his fist curled at his side. She misses him so terribly it feels like a physical ache. “Am I speaking to the leader of the people whose ship landed in Doah village and killed half its inhabitants?”

Diyoza’s eyes narrow and Clarke sees her deciding between denying her responsibility in the massacre and admitting she and McCreary still have an uneasy push-and-pull of control over the crew. 

“Speaking,” she says at last, apparently deciding it’s more important to appear strong and united. 

“I have a thermonuclear warhead pointed at your ship and I will launch it if you don't release my friends and leave the valley,” Bellamy says, and Clarke’s hand flies up to cover her mouth. Oh, Bellamy, you _genius_ , she thinks. The relief of knowing he has a plan, that he isn’t rushing in and putting himself in terrible danger to save her, is overwhelming. She almost wants to laugh. “Doah’s allies will never forgive you, and trust me, you don’t want to start that war. There's whole other continents you can go bother instead where the local population won't try to kill you for the rest of your life." 

Diyoza grimaces. "There's a bunch of larpers in the woods with spears and you expect me to believe you have a nuke?" The long pause on the other end of the line tells Clarke that Bellamy doesn't know what a larper is either. 

“He has it,” Clarke says confidently, smiling without humour as all the eyes in the room turn on her. “We captured a military base, years ago. Never needed to use it until now.”

"You're looking awfully happy for someone in the theoretical blast zone," Diyoza tells Clarke. Then, to the radio: "Say I believe that you really have a nuke. Are you the sort of person who can kill three hundred people just like that?" 

“I’ve done it before,” Bellamy says roughly, as Clarke’s heart squeezes painfully. The blood on their hands could stain a river and they’ve been trying to wash themselves clean for years. She doesn’t want Diyoza to force Bellamy’s hand - she doesn’t care what happens to her. If she dies, she’ll die, and it’ll be quick. Maybe just a flash of bright light and a moment of heat. It’ll be a more merciful death than she deserves. But if she dies, Bellamy will have to live with it, and Clarke cannot allow that.

"There were three hundred people in Mount Weather when we landed on Earth," Clarke tells Diyoza, whose eyes flicker with interest. "There aren't anymore. They tried to keep us prisoner too, so Bellamy and I killed them. He's not bluffing." she raises her chin and stares Diyoza down and hopes she can't see her uncertainty. 

Because if she's really honest, she doesn't actually know if Bellamy can make himself do that again. It nearly killed them the first time. They survived, but she remembers the first few years afterwards, how long and how difficult and _endless_ it felt to drag themselves back to people they could stand being. Diyoza meets her gaze unflinchingly for several heartbeats before she raises the radio to her mouth. 

“There’s just one problem with that,” Diyoza says evenly. “I need your doctor.”

“ _No deal_ ,” Bellamy snarls. 

“If we leave before you’ve cured us,” Diyoza tells Clarke. “My people will start dying in a few months anyway.”

“Then let me talk to Bellamy,” Clarke says. “Buy us time.”

Diyoza turns the radio over and over in one hand as she thinks. Her face is hard as she makes up her mind and hands it over. Clarke bites her lip.

“Any chance for some privacy?” she asks half-heartedly. Diyoza raises her eyebrows and somehow makes it look incredibly disrespectful. “Yeah, didn’t think so,” Clarke murmurs. She takes a deep breath. “Bellamy?”

“ _Clarke_ ,” he says, his voice filled with such obvious relief that Clarke almost flinches under the eyes of Diyoza’s crew on her. “Are you hurt - is Raven - “

“We’re okay,” Clarke murmurs. “Madi found you?”

“Yeah.”

There’s so much Clarke wants to say, but just a few words from him already have her eyes burning as she struggles to hold back tears. She can’t fall to pieces with her captors watching. She can’t. 

“I’m glad you led with your head,” she says, closing her eyes. “But listen. The strangers are sick. If I cure them, they’ll leave, I just need some time - “

“We don’t have time, Clarke. Lexa’s army will reach Arkadia in less than 2 days.” Bellamy says, and her stomach drops. With her eyes closed, if she ignores the static, she can almost pretend he’s here, close enough to reach out and touch. They’ve always been better together. Instead, all she has is soundwaves. Clarke forces her eyes open and stares hard at the sonogram image of the patient on her examination table who has somehow kept gently snoring throughout this entire conversation, bomb threats and all. 

Something has changed. As Clarke watches, one of the abscesses is leaking into the surrounding tissue, slowly growing less dense at the center. She stiffens.

“Soundwaves,” she murmurs, and leaps to the machine’s controls to enlarge the image. Her hands shake with adrenaline, with the possibilities. 

“What is it?” Diyoza says, grabbing her shoulder and spinning her around painfully. 

“One of the abscesses is breaking up.”

“Is that good?” Diyoza asks sharply. 

“Um,” Clarke says, scratching her head. “I mean, without a way to remove the particulate that caused those blockages in the first place there will still be some lasting tissue damage, but if it’s dispersed… it won’t kill you,” she says, meeting Diyoza’s eyes with a shocked smile as it beings to sink in. She taps the sonogram wand. “I just need a more powerful version of this. And luckily for you and your sick crew, you have the best engineer on Earth in your brig.” She raises the radio. “Bellamy, I have an idea. Trust me.” To Diyoza, she says: “Raven and I will heal you, but when we’re done, you set all three of us free and leave the valley, or Bellamy launches that missile.”

“Hmm.” Diyoza says, crossing her arms. “That’s actually not a bad deal. Fuck it, we’ll pay California a visit.”

“One more thing,” Clarke says. “Your arrival here put my people in a difficult situation with the other locals. I’m going to need something to… prove that your crew wasn’t affiliated with mine.”

Diyoza’s eyes narrow ever so slightly. Clarke holds her breath while the colonel deliberates silently.

“I have just the thing,” she says at last.

They finalize their agreement as Diyoza walks Clarke back to her cell. When the door opens, Raven is waiting with her arms crossed, her posture defensive. Octavia rolls over and groans dramatically when she sees Diyoza.

“Fuck, it’s _you_ again.”

"Friend of yours?" Diyoza asks Clarke, seeing Octavia.

"Not really," Clarke says quickly. "We haven't seen her in years."

Of course the truth isn't so simple. She can't remember the last time she and Bellamy spoke of Octavia. Clarke hoped that by now the wounds she left on him would have healed, but she's not entirely sure how Bellamy might react if he found out Octavia is a prisoner here too. If he'd hesitate longer to launch that missile. It's not worth the risk to their fragile agreement to let Diyoza know she has more leverage over him than she thinks.

Luckily, the half-lie seems to pass without so much as a flicker of suspicion from Diyoza.

“Come on,” she says to Raven, waving her hand commandingly. “We have work to do.”

Raven’s gaze flickers to Clarke, who tries to smile reassuringly. 

“It’s going to be okay,” she promises. “I’m going to get us all out.”

\- three years earlier

It’s just another day, and Clarke can’t say what about it is different from all the days that came previously. She and Bellamy are out in the orchard in a far corner of the garden where the brambles muffle the sound of hammers as their people put up another cabin. The apple trees are in full bloom, though their fruits are still small and green, and the sunlight that filters down through their leaves is soft and dappled and is making Clarke sleepy. They have a radio receiver - the one with the finicky antenna - balanced against a rock and a map with worn and fragile creases is spread between them on the picnic blanket.

Clarke is doodling some medicinal plants she wants the next gathering expedition to keep an eye out for, and Bellamy is jotting notes on a page she tore out for him on which snarelines are doing well and which areas don’t have good hunting. The tip of Clarke’s pen stills as Jasper introduces a new song, one so quiet she sits up and turns the volume up so she can hear the soft female vocals. Bellamy looks up and smiles at her as she lays back down next to him. 

_Mama, take this badge off of me, I can't use it anymore_ , the radio sings, accompanied by the distant sound of birdsong and their people’s laughter. Clarke pushes her sketches away for a moment and lets her head loll to the side to look at Bellamy. Her chest grows tight as she traces the sharp line of his jaw, the sunlight gleaming off his eyelashes as he double-checks a landmark on the map. _It's gettin' dark, too dark to see. I feel I'm knockin' on heaven's door -_

How have they been so lucky to make it so far? To live long enough to lie here in the sun, with the soft crooning of a dead girl’s music in their ears, with their people so strong and healthy and hopeful.

Bellamy notices her unnatural stillness and looks up just as the first tear slips out of the corner of Clarke’s eye. He sets down his pencil immediately.

“Clarke,” he says roughly, crawling closer. “ _Clarke_ , what’s wrong?”

His head blocks the sun as he leans over her, his thumb reaching to brush the tear away. The corona of his wild curls glows like a halo, illuminated like fire. He’s the most beautiful thing Clarke has ever seen and she still doesn’t deserve him. She will never deserve him, or the life they’ve built here in the ruins, but for some reason he wants her at his side. Is it enough, to love and be loved? Is that enough to save someone?

“Nothing’s wrong,” she murmurs, smiling at him. 

_Mama, put my guns in the ground, I can't shoot them anymore._

“You’re crying,” he whispers. 

“I’m so happy,” Clarke says, her voice cracking as she lifts her hand and wraps her pale fingers around his wrist. “I love you,” she says, and his lips part in quiet disbelief. Clarke barrels ahead before she can lose her courage. “I’ve loved you for so long, and I know I don’t deserve you - “

“That’s not true - “

 _That long black cloud is comin' down_ , the radio croons, and another tear slips past Clarke’s defenses. 

“I love you,” she says again. “If you’ll let me.”

He traces her chin, his eyes filled with fear and wonder. 

“You’re not going to break my heart again?” he asks, trying to sound light. 

“No,” Clarke promises, and he plants his hand next to her head, the fingers splayed against her hair. He lays down next to her, propped up on his elbow, and for a moment they lie still looking at each other, blanketed by sunlight, breathless with anticipation. It feels like an eternity before he finally leans in and kisses her. He sighs against her mouth and Clarke wraps her arm around his shoulders, holding him close and trying to commit every sensation of this to memory. The warmth. The ripple of the muscles in his back as he relaxes and rests more weight against her. The quiet groan he makes in the back of his throat when she bites his lip. And the radio, still singing through the static. 

_I love you_ , Clarke thinks, as dizzy with the magnitude of it as she was the first time they saw the ocean and realized they were tiny and powerless. _I’ll love you through anything._ She accidentally kicks the radio off its rock when she rolls Bellamy onto his back, and the stupid antenna gives out, and then the only sound that matters is Bellamy’s heartbeat, pounding so fast she can feel it in her ribcage. She can’t help but grin at him, and the smile he gives her in return makes it all worthwhile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s a handy youtube link to [Knocking On Heaven’s Door](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mknLaFJZ4v4) in case you need to listen to it and cry again.
> 
> For this chapter, thank you to @queenkevindays (who hasn’t watched the 100 in years, I think?) for explaining football to me so that I, a known sport-hater, could write a vaguely realistic match. I think Clarke should get to play football more often because we know she canonically loves it. Come on Jroth, less levers, more balls to kick, merci.
> 
> In the real season 5 when Abby scans Vinson, she says he has “pulmonary tumefaction.” Do you know what google says that means? Lung tumours! She could have just said lung tumours! But noooooo we gotta act all doctor-y. I’ve done my best until now to make this fic fairly medically-accurate with my basic first aid knowledge and friendships with a lot of nurses, but this chapter was based on jroth’s science and is just like, ugh. I’ve spent too much time in radiology departments, and I don’t recognize what the fuck kind of equipment Abby uses, so I just called it a sonogram????? idk. Science fiction makes shit up all the time.
> 
> This fic got like..... a really alarming amount of nominations for the bellarke fic awards. Thank you, so much, to all of you. It meant a lot. <3 The passage of time and I aren't really vibing right now, but I think by the time I post this chapter the semi-finals are still going on? So check [those](https://bellarkeficawards.tumblr.com/) out. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I know I've been excited to get to it for a while. I think Diyoza's line about larpers is one of my favourite things I've ever written. Plus..... the origins of Jasper's radio station. I tried to sprinkle enough hints for what everyone's been up to for 6 years that you could fill in the blanks, but his background arc was my favourite.


	6. death and her mother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **CONTENT WARNINGS:** basically sentencing someone to die, prenatal care and a birth (not Clarke’s) that’s not described in much detail. There’s a happy ending at last!!
> 
> Thank you for reading this far!

#

\- three years later

The _Gagarin_ rises up over the forest canopy before they’ve made it out of range, and Clarke turns back to hear branches breaking under the force of its takeoff thrusters and see the ripples in a sea of leaves. For a moment Clarke’s mind replaces the sight with an image of the dropship, broken and soot-stained and _beautiful_ , and she wonders how history might have gone if they’d been able to take off after they realized they’d landed in someone else’s home, if they’d gone somewhere else, beyond Mount Weather’s reach or the Grounders’.

She has the sudden urge to take a detour on their way home and see the home they were taken from so many years ago. The bones must be starting to break down by now. Maybe there is green again. The nostalgia, the wanting, hits like a physical blow until she shields herself from it. Blink, and the _Gagarin_ is only the _Gagarin_ again. The transport ship was built for low-gravity asteroids, not Earth, and it turns southeast with slow, ponderous movements. The amount of hythylodium they must be burning to make this flight is massive. Clarke tastes the acrid stench of fuel on the wind just a moment later. Next to her, Raven breathes it in longingly. This exposure won’t hurt them, but Clarke still feels a tinge of worry for her.

Clarke reaches out with one hand and takes Raven’s. 

“I’m sorry about Zeke,” she says, her voice small compared to the lingering roar of the transport’s engines. Clarke asked, at some point, if he wanted to come along with them. He was still a stranger to her, but Raven had spoken to him and decided he was worth her attention, and Raven’s judgement is not an easy one to pass. But Zeke only smiled sadly at her and told her he was the expedition’s last living pilot. They couldn’t get the Eligius prisoners out of the valley and keep him, too.

Clarke expects Raven’s face to keep reflecting the wistful melancholy she’s been wearing since they struck a final deal with Diyoza, but to her surprise Raven almost smiles. 

“It might not be the last we ever see of him,” she says, simple and sure, and Clarke has learned not to doubt Raven when she hedges her bets. She gives a small laugh of disbelief and shakes her head as the Gagarin fades into a speck on the horizon, and the forest is quiet once again. 

When Octavia steps out of the underbrush she does so soundlessly, prowling like a predator. Even in full daylight she somehow manages to cling to the shadows between trees. When she is still, she barely draws the eye at all. She’s been following Clarke and Raven at a distance since Diyoza set them loose, and now, with the Gagarin finally out of sight, she draws closer for the first time. McCreary notices her a second or two after Clarke does and makes a low, angry grunt around the gag in his mouth.

Clarke puts herself between McCreary and Octavia, just in case. Her gaze automatically goes to the raw and bruised skin around Octavia’s neck. The electrical burns will linger for a few weeks. She took a lot of damage from that shock collar before Clarke and Raven appeared, and Clarke wouldn’t be shocked if Octavia wants to get a little revenge on McCreary for it, especially now that he’s the one collared and hand-cuffed. But as she draws closer it becomes clear Octavia is in one of her moods where she doesn’t pay attention to pain. 

In fact, her attention seems wholly focused on the subtle curve of Clarke’s stomach. 

“Will I be able to see the baby?” Octavia asks hoarsely. The trace of desperation in her voice and the single-minded focus almost makes her seem young again. Maybe it’s only because Clarke was already thinking about the dropship, but she tries to reconcile the assassin in leather with the girl who chased butterflies and for a moment nearly succeeds. Octavia’s face is haunted and full of longing. It’s a little bit frightening, but mostly just sad.

“That’s Bellamy’s choice,” Clarke says at last, and she watches Octavia’s face flicker with both hope and disappointment until she finally nods in acceptance. When she turns and slips back into the forest, Clarke isn’t sure what understanding she’s come to. If Octavia took her words to mean she had a chance, or not.

“I’m glad she’s not dead,” Raven says quietly, startling her out of her thoughts. McCreary makes an unintelligible sound that probably means he would very much like her to be dead.

In some ways it might have been easier if Octavia _was_ dead, Clarke muses, because there’s a certain closure in knowing that. She thinks the wondering was the hardest part of it for Bellamy. When they knew nothing of her except the occasional rumor of murder, she was always both dead and alive, and he had to carry twice the pain and regret. But if she comes to New Rome to speak to him and see her niece or nephew, maybe that will bring closure too. 

So Clarke makes herself smile, despite everything, and wraps her arm around Raven to help her keep climbing out of the valley. Between Raven’s leg and McCreary purposefully dragging his feet, they don’t make much progress, but it’s enough. 

Around noon they hear the thunder of hoofbeats over the next rise, and a moment later the rev of the rover’s engine - and then Clarke throws her arms in the air and yells in delight as Indra’s warriors surround them. Indra is the first off her horse and she closes the remaining distance in two long strides. One of her hands reaches to brush Clarke’s hair away from the faint red mark the shock collar left, before she squeezes both of Clarke's shoulders tightly and smiles. From Indra, that's basically the equivalent of a hug. 

“The murderers are gone, you are both alive, and you come with…?” Indra asks, immediately returning to business when she catches sight of McCreary’s scowling face.

“Someone to blame,” Clarke says. It was a little shocking, at first, how quickly Diyoza agreed to hand him over in exchange for Clarke and Raven to finish treating her sick. Maybe McCreary’s cruelty to the Doah village had gone too far, even for her. He wasn’t the only one to kill Doah’s villagers, but he was the one that stood out most to Madi, and Clarke is banking on that being enough to satisfy the Grounders’ revenge. 

The rover squeaks to a halt so abruptly that some of the horses skitter sideways and nervously toss their heads. Bellamy is stumbling out before the engine is even fully turned off, and Clarke forgets everything else. Forgets McCreary, and the eyes of Indra’s warriors on them, and the politics of it all. She runs to meet him halfway and half-sobs with relief as he picks her up and spins her around, his arms crushing her to his chest, and _oh._

Oh, she's home again.

“You’re safe,” he whispers into her hair as he sets her down and her knees nearly buckle. He says it over and over, a prayer he still can’t believe is true, and Clarke breathes in the familiar scent of him and lets the last of her fear melt away. She’s safe, and Bellamy is here, and together they can still save Arkadia. Around them Clarke is distantly aware of the others, of Raven’s bright laugh of relief as Emori fills her in on what they’ve missed, but she hides her face in Bellamy’s shoulder and doesn’t surface until Miller nudges them, quietly murmuring - 

“Hey man, I get that you’re married but some of us want to hug Clarke too.”

Clarke lets go of Bellamy and brushes a tear out of the way with the back of her hand before letting Miller pull her in. He’s not generally a hugger, so she pats his back and hopes he understands she’s apologizing for how badly she and Raven scared him. Clarke smiles as her friends crowd together, and even Indra’s warriors look darkly pleased with how everything has turned out. 

Madi lurks on the outskirts of their little group, unsure, until Clarke beckons her closer. Her skinny arms come to wrap around Clarke’s hips and the strange and unexpected relief of her safety is so powerful that Clarke forget how to speak for a moment. She feels Madi’s nose digging into the curve of her stomach and her matted hair against her forearms and for a moment she’s outside of her body, looking at the two of them embracing. It's a glimpse of the first time in her life she’s felt like she could be a good mother. Clarke blinks and she’s settled back into her limbs and Madi is scrambling a step back but the affection still lingers.

 _Come home with us_ , Clarke thinks urgently. “I’m glad you’re safe,” she manages to choke out instead. 

“I’m glad _you_ are,” Madi retorts. “If you guys died and I left you there, I was going to blame myself for the rest of my life!”

“The alternative was worse,” Clarke murmurs to herself, and then, looking around for the last missing piece, realizes Monty is not among them. The relief and peace that she had just been relaxing into dissipates instantly. “Where is he?” she demands, her voice loud and sharp and cutting through every other conversation. “Where’s Monty?”

The sudden stilted silence is answer enough.

“Clarke - ” Bellamy begins carefully.

“Did you leave him there?” Clarke breathes, taking a step back. Her heart pangs at the flash of pain across his face but she can't be mad at him when he's reaching for her, and she needs to be mad now, _do they not understand what they've done to him?_

“Hey, the missile threat worked once,” Emori says defensively. “We all agreed it was a good backup plan if the Commander doesn’t back down.”

But Clarke can barely hear her words. All she can remember is sitting with Monty four years ago, both of them feeling small and broken, while he thanked her for taking the choice to kill out of his hands, and again Monty slotting ammunition into his gun as he prepared to walk into his own personal hell for the chance to walk out with his mother, and again Monty making her promise it wouldn’t come to war again. _Time to find out what kind of person I am_ , his memory whispers to her. 

“No,” Clarke says forcefully, pushing aside the comforting hand Raven tries to lay on her arm. “ _No_ , why did it have to be _Monty?_ ”

“He volunteered,” Miller says, grabbing her face and forcing her to look at him, to pay more attention to him than the ghosts. “Clarke, listen to me. He volunteered, and he… he said if it was him in front of that button, you’d do anything to make sure he doesn’t have to push it.”

The roar of her pulse in her ears is deafening. An ocean crashing against itself. Clarke is torn between the urge to laugh and the urge to hit something until she bleeds. _Monty, you clever bastard_ , she thinks. He’s right. He knew exactly how to force her hand. Fuck him, she’ll die before she makes him bear the weight of that decision, and she hates him for his gamble right now, even as it dawns on her that he's saving them the best way he knows how.

“Let’s get going then,” Clarke says, her hands dropping to her sides. As the adrenaline fades it leaves her limbs weak and heavy and jittery. She stares at the ground as the others return to their horses or the rover. What kind of bravery did it take for them to walk back into Mount Weather, with all its ghosts and memories and the stench of death still lingering in the dining room? Did Monty hesitate before telling them to walk out without him?

Bellamy tentatively takes her hand, pulling her out of her imagination. 

“For the record - “ he begins to say, and Clarke lifts a finger to his lips, drags her head up to meet his dark brown gaze. 

“I understand,” she says. “I don’t like it, but I understand. He wants us to end this the right way.”

The right way still involves handing a dangerous prisoner over to what will probably be a very long and painful ritualistic execution… but in Clarke’s experience that’s the best they can hope for on Earth. If they walk away from this conflict with McCreary as its lone last victim, she’ll consider it a victory.

Bellamy leans his forehead against hers and exhales heavily. “When this is over,” he whispers, “We are going to lock our door and crawl into bed and not come out for a week. I am done with this sort of shit.”

Clarke laughs quietly. “Yeah, I’m feeling that.” She feels like they’ll need a full week to talk about everything - she wants to know what she missed and to tell him about Octavia and the baby kicking for the first time and all the memories of their six years on Earth she dwelled on during the long stretches of silence. She just hopes that’s a promise they can follow through on. Miller honks the rover at them and Clarke and Bellamy climb in. He doesn’t let go of her hand until they reach Arkadia.

The horizon, to her overwhelming relief, is still empty of Lexa’s army. They still have time, then, to deal with this one last danger.

\- two years earlier

Bellamy holds her more tightly than usual in their inn room in Polis and part of Clarke wants to push him away, tell him the whispers in the marketplace don’t bother her. The other part likes being protected. It’s not a feeling she has often. There are still several hours left until noon, until they are expected at Lexa's tower, so Clarke closes her eyes against the slant of sunlight in her eyes and lets herself enjoy Bellamy’s embrace and the pleasant ache of her body.

When she wakes again, the light coming in through the inn’s cracked shutters is brighter still, and her mouth is as dry as the desert at the northeast boundary of their exploration. She untangles herself from Bellamy’s limbs, reassuring his sleepy protests with a kiss when he tries to pull her back into bed, and walks to the pitcher of water on the dresser. She touches the clay jug with the back of her knuckles. Still fairly cool. The child who brought it up last night stared when he thought Clarke couldn’t see him, and she wonders idly if poisoning is a thing she should worry about. They still call her Wanheda in the streets and avert their eyes as she passes, and Clarke knows that idolization and hatred are two sides of the same coin. 

_Fuck it_ , she thinks idly. _I’m thirsty._ She downs an entire glass and feels much better. When she sets the glass down, she catches a glimpse of her reflection in the dresser’s mirror and stills. The mirror is scratched and chipped, its pre-apocalypse silver backing having seen better days, but the image is clear enough for her to make out the trail of bruises creeping up the side of her neck. Clarke brushes them with her fingertip. The skin feels warm and tender. 

The water hasn’t killed her yet, so she fills it again and carries it to Bellamy. He opens one eye to glare at her when she puts its cold bottom against his chest. 

“I’m covered in hickies,” she says matter-of-factly, and his gaze flickers down to her bare chest and back up to her face without an ounce of shame. 

“They bring out the colour of your eyes,” Bellamy says, managing to keep a straight face nearly the whole way through the sentence. Clarke splays her palm over his face and pushes it away as his shoulders shake with restrained laughter. 

“When the other ambassadors look down on us for our undignified appearance, I’ll be sure to let them know,” Clarke says, slipping off the bed and reaching for her discarded clothes. Bellamy gets up with a groan a moment later and starts to get dressed at her side. 

“I’ll buy you breakfast in the marketplace to make up for it,” he says as she pulls her shirt over her head and sweeps her hair over one shoulder so that the curls nearly hide the bruises he left. 

Clarke can’t make fun of Bellamy for the obvious awe and excitement he feels about the marketplace, not when she feels it too. They first arrived in Polis yesterday morning, more than a full day ahead of the trade negotiations scheduled to take place across the coalition, and all their careful plans to stick close together in case there was lingering resentment towards Skaikru visitors fell apart in the first few hours when Miller discovered the chickens for sale and Monroe and Harper found the glassblowers in the arts district.

Lexa was right about one thing, years ago. Polis really has changed how Clarke sees the Grounders. It just didn’t happen when and how she thought it would. 

The innkeeper downstairs tells them the others have already gone out for the day, so Bellamy and Clarke step out onto the street and into the bright late morning. Down the street there is a gaggle of children playing a game that involves throwing a small sack at targets scratched onto a wall with chalk. From a distance, you can’t tell that they’re yelling Trigedasleng at each other instead of English, and if Clarke closes her eyes they sound just like the children back home. There’s still only a handful of them but already some in the village are wistfully talking about having more, and Clarke…

Clarke thinks she might like that. 

Bellamy’s hand brushes against hers as they follow the street’s sloping curve to the main marketplace on the way to the tower. The children’s laughter fades and the sound of haggling and a jaunty harmonica tune grow louder to replace it. At the edge of the marketplace, Bellamy stops to gently stroke a pile of folded fabrics softer than anything they’ve found in their bunker. An old woman with a missing eye and skin so gnarled and spotted that she reminds Clarke of an oak tree watches his fingers. She clicks her tongue when she thinks he’s looked long enough, and smiles - not quite friendly, but not entirely unwelcome, either. Clarke changes her assessment from an oak tree to something cleverer. A fox, perhaps, or a magpie with an eye for opportunity. 

Clarke heard secondhand from Kane that Lexa tried to introduce a standardized currency last year, but it hasn’t caught on yet and most of the marketplace still works on bartering. Clarke thinks bartering is more practical, anyway. She listened to Kane’s argument against it with one ear, but in the end the difference in value between items up for trade comes down to who is more desperate. She wants peace, of course. She’ll always want peace. But peace without prosperity isn’t quite as nice, and her people - they aren’t desperate for much these days.

“” Bellamy asks, faltering only slightly over the words as he points at a pale blue scarf threaded with small wooden beads. 

“, yes?” the woman replies with a cackle.

“What are you doing?” Clarke asks out of the corner of her mouth. She sees his lips twitch up in a smile before he turns back to the old woman. She taps her spotted mouth before pointing sharply at a bracelet of shells and spare thread from an unraveled sheet around Bellamy’s wrist. He toys with it for a moment before slipping it off and placing it in her outstretched, leathery palm. 

“Helping you with your hickey problem,” Bellamy says with a smirk, shaking out the blue scarf and winding it around her neck. Clarke pulls a face at him but obediently lifts her hair out of the way and raises her chin as he arranges it over her collarbones. When she touches the fabric she finds it even softer than it looks. This is…

“Bellamy, this is wonderful,” she says. “Wasted on me - “

“No good thing is ever wasted on you,” he replies firmly, grabbing her hand. The old woman is watching their exchange with a smug smile, her bony arms crossed over her chest. Clarke wracks her memory for the Tridegasleng word for thanks. 

“,” she says at last, smiling bashfully at the old woman. 

Bellamy takes her hand again and they weave through the eclectic stalls as the marketplace opens up onto a wider plaza. Banners of all colours flutter in the corner of Clarke’s vision. A sweet-smelling cloud of smoke rises up from a grill with a long line of customers longingly watching their kebabs sizzle. Bellamy elbows her. 

“What?” Clarke asks, before she follows the direction of his pointed figure. She sees Miller and Harper down the street presenting a furry shawl and a skein of coarse wool to a young boy with his hands set imperiously on his hips. Around the boy’s feet an entire hoard of chickens on leashes is milling about, pecking at crumbs between the cobblestones. “Oh my god,” Clarke murmurs. “Miller was serious about buying the chickens?”

“He’s actually buying the chickens,” Bellamy confirms, nodding slowly and barely holding back laughter. 

“Can we _fit_ that many chickens into the rover?” Clarke asks, grabbing at Bellamy’s elbow in alarm as the boy accepts the trade and hands Miller the leashes to nearly a dozen chickens.

“Maybe in our laps?”

“ _Really_? They’re going to flap around and panic and we’re going to crash into a tree. After all we've survived, it'll be death by chicken.”

Bellamy tugs her behind a cart and down another aisle of the marketplace where they’re hidden from view as Harper and Miller start to walk towards them with their gaggle of chickens following loudly. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s pretend we haven’t seen them so they can try to explain this to us later.”

The smile that Clarke wears for the next few minutes is wide and real and can’t be burst by the lingering stares on her bright blonde hair and the man next to her who proudly wears Arkadia’s emblem on his jacket. For a while they are just two young people hiding from their friends and their twelve chickens, and that’s enough. 

Clarke is the one who spots the tattoo shop down the road. They’ve set up in an actual building, not outside with the rest of the marketplace, and the storefront is hidden underneath a sagging wooden balcony that shadows the doorway. The woman leaning against the window notices her curious gaze and beckons them closer with one hand. 

“You wanted to mark me so badly,” Clarke leans in and whispers to Bellamy, who rolls his eyes. “Here’s your chance to do it permanently.”

“All right,” he says. “Let’s see what they’re offering.”

She doesn’t think they’re carrying anything on them they could trade, so they might have to double back and ask Miller nicely for one of his chickens, but Clarke follows Bellamy into the shop, feeling excitement and curiosity like the buzzing of a beehive in her chest. The woman who beckoned them inside is covered in tattoos, her bare arms black with sharp slashes and ink blots that remind Clarke of the splatter of blood. Some of her warm feelings fade as the woman regards them both, her gaze eventually settling on their joined hands. 

“Are you here for a marriage bond?” the woman asks. 

“Marriage bond?”

She holds up her hand and points to the band of dark ink around her ring finger. It had passed unnoticed among the larger and more eye-catching pieces spiraling up her arms, but when her hand drops to her side again Clarke’s eyes can’t help but track it. She tells herself the pull she feels towards it is just fascination. Bellamy’s hand tightens around hers. 

“It is more practical than a ring,” he says, casually, like they’re discussing whether or not to put some tea to boil over the fire. Clarke tilts her head, and his smile creeps out, just a little bashful. 

“Are you trying to tell me something?” she asks. 

“I told you I don’t do things halfway,” Bellamy says simply. There are years of emotion bound in those few, simple words, and they threaten to make Clarke’s throat close. She loves him. She loves him, and somehow he loves her, and somehow the years have been good to them. 

“All right,” she says. “How much will that cost us?”

“For Wanheda?” the woman says, her eyes flickering with a distant darkness. “Nothing. I was in that mountain when you two broke it open. Giving you this gift, it is the least I can do.”

Clarke recoils. It’s funny. She always thinks of the three hundred they killed with that lever and forgets to subtract the lives that walked out of the cages. She’s so primed to remember the horror, and she wasn’t there to see the reunions they made possible with all that spilled blood. So many kills. So many rebirths. 

She takes a deep breath.

“Thank you,” Clarke murmurs. She and Bellamy hold hands through the process, the ones that aren’t worked on. Jake and Abby wore their rings on their left hands, but she and Bellamy wordlessly pick hands on opposite sides. When they heal, when they hold each other again, the bands will be touching. She squeezes his fingers when the pinprick of needles begins to itch too strongly. By the time they are done, Clarke’s belly is growling with hunger, and it is nearly time for the trade negotiations. 

She raises her hand to the light when the woman finishes. Her skin bleeds red underneath the ink, but the woman promises it will heal a dark blue. She wraps their fingers with clean cloth and sends them off on their way with another _thank you_ , gratitude melting through her hoarse voice, as though they are the ones who have given her the gift today. 

Bellamy pulls her into the first alleyway they pass and raises her bandaged hand to his mouth. 

“Clarke,” he says, his forehead furrowed, his jaw working as he searches for words. 

“Yes, husband?” Clarke asks, and watches his face pass through shock and relief and finally laughter, knocking their foreheads together as he chuckles. “I love you,” she breathes. “I will spend the rest of my life making sure you are happy and protected and - “

“ _Hey_ ,” he says. 

“That’s it, isn’t it, that’s what you were going to say?” Clarke asks with a laugh. 

“I’m trying to have a moment,” Bellamy says pointedly, trapping her against the wall and kissing the corner of her mouth. Clarke closes her eyes and smiles as his unbandaged hand strokes her cheek. “You basically nailed it, but… Back on the Ark, I never thought I’d get to be in love, or have a real relationship. I thought I’d be alone and keeping secrets all my life.”

“You’ll never be alone,” Clarke says automatically, grabbing his hand and nuzzling into it. 

“No,” Bellamy says with a soft, sad smile. “I guess not.” 

They steal kisses until someone walks a pair of goats past the mouth of their alleyway and the clatter of hooves on cobblestone startles them out of their little world and reminds them they probably have a negotiation to attend.

She and Bellamy are the last ambassadors to enter the throne room at the top of the tower. Clarke freezes under the weight of so many eyes turning towards her. At the back of the room, not quite lowering his voice enough to make it believable that he doesn’t want to be overheard, one of the ambassadors leans over to his neighbours and asks why Skaikru gets so many seats at the table. Clarke doesn’t really hear him or the murmured reply. She’s looking at the charcoal-lined eyes at the far end of the table, where Lexa sits draped in her velvet red finery, silhouetted by antlers. _The stag is the king of the forest_ , Clarke remembers idly. It’s really quite poetic.

Lexa’s bright green eyes are as captivating as they were four years ago, and Clarke is caught in that gaze. She waits for the fury to rise up in her. The heat that chokes her and makes her fingers curl into shaking fists. She’s carried that fury around for four years, a weight nearly as heavy as the three hundred deaths. There were a few nights that she spent alone and feral after Mount Weather when the fury of Lexa’s betrayal was the only thing that kept the cold at bay. Clarke would replay that moment in her head over and over again, the ghosts of the twelve armies walking away and leaving her to face the mountain alone. Leaving her to make that terrible choice alone. 

Bellamy’s hand squeezes hers, and Clarke realizes they have been standing in place too long. They walk to their empty spots at the table, across from Kane here as Arkadia’s representative, who smiles in greeting. Lexa’s gaze drops to Clarke’s bandaged ring finger as she splays her hand on the table and pulls her chair in. 

Clarke waits for the fury even as the first ambassador clears his throat and begins to speak. She waits for it as Bellamy and the bearded man from Floukru confirm they’ve had no border disputes and Kane slides a sheet of paper with some supplies he wants to offer to them before he puts them up for trade to the others clans. She waits for hours, until she nearly forgets to wait. 

And when Lexa next speaks, her voice cool and calm and so distant, Clarke looks up and realizes the fury left quietly one night, without saying goodbye, the door gently closed behind it. The betrayal is still there but it doesn’t burn like it used to.

She's free.

\- two years later

Arkadia's communication tower, built from scraps of the ring as part of Raven's plan to connect Skaikru's two settlements, was not exactly meant to carry the weight of four people, or even three and a half. But Raven and Emori are up here to calibrate the signal dish for the frequency Monty will be on, Clarke is up here because it's the highest vantage point in Arkadia and she wants to see the army coming, and Madi is here because she has an endless amount of questions to ask and the alternative was having her underfoot while Bellamy and Miller handle the explosives. So Clarke holds on tightly to the support struts as the tower sways ever so slightly in the wind and stares out over the Arkadia's empty fields.

It seems like everyone is holding their breaths to see what happens. Raven got in contact with New Rome to go underground - just in case the worst happens and the war reaches their doorstep - and Arkadia hasn't quite recovered from the viral outbreak that overwhelmed Abby's medbay, but the few who have recovered enough to load a gun are up on the wall, pretending they'll be able to do more than delay the inevitable with their meagre numbers. 

The silence is the worst part of it. Even Raven and Emori murmur quietly to each other as they tug the dish into place manually. Only Madi is apparently unfazed as she leans out into the void and twists her hand through the breeze. Her face is thoughtful.

“Why’d Commander Lexa do it?” she wonders aloud. “It sounds like a bad deal to me.”

“Something about it must have appealed to her,” Clarke says quietly. Madi hums, clearly unconvinced.

“Do you hate her?” Madi asks. Clarke tilts her head as she searches for the right words to the deepest scar on her soul. 

“Hating someone is really exhausting,” Clarke says reluctantly. “It took… _years_ , and I’m still angry. I’m still betrayed. But I had to let some of that go or else I…”

_I’d still be lost in the forest, alone with my grief, eating panthers and freezing every night and convinced it was the only way to atone for my crimes. I’d be dead by now. From frostbite, or starvation, or someone who believed too strongly in the legend of Wanheda._

“It was more important to come home,” Clarke murmurs. 

“They're here,” Emori says, her voice sounding a little strangled, and Clarke glances up only to find her staring out at the edges of Arkadia’s fields. She curses herself for getting lost in memories and not paying attention. Emori’s right. The vanguard of Lexa’s army appears like a darkness seeping out of the forest, like the shadow of a cloud creeping over a sunny day. The main body of the army follows, the tattered clan banners raising up high once they’re free of the forest’s low-hanging branches, and the stain of warriors just keeps coming with no end in sight. They walk straight through the crops, ignoring the neat rows of dirt between them, snapping stalks and crushing vegetables under their feet. Clarke swallows hard. Even if they stop a slaughter today, the cost of the lost harvest is already high. 

“We good to go?” she asks quickly. 

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Raven answers, passing down one of the short range radios. 

“Right,” Clarke says. “Well. Love you guys.”

Clarke clips the radio to the back of her belt and carefully swings off the tower’s platform onto the ladder leading down before Raven can tell her to take those last words back. A moment later the ladder shakes with an extra set of footprints. 

“Hey!” she calls up as she sees Madi’s boots scrambling to follow her down. “Go back up, it’s the safest - “

“Hell no!” Madi yells, “I’m _Louwada_. You need me to vouch for you, _and_ it’s my right to see that  punished.”

 _Less than a week with my friends and you’ve already picked up English curses_ , Clarke thinks, and then indulges in a curse herself. As much as she hates it, Madi has a point. A Louwada witness might be exactly what tips this confrontation back into peace. 

“Fine,” she mutters, and keeps climbing down as fast as she can. 

Clarke finds Bellamy sitting at one end of a roughhewn bench by one of the firepits, his rifle slung over his shoulder as though it’ll make any difference against an army that size. Abby sits on the other end, still in her scrubs, her forearms braced against her thighs and her back bowed. Neither she nor Bellamy notice her coming closer. Abby suddenly looks older than Clarke has ever seen her, and it makes her falter in her step. It's not the sudden appearance of gray streaks in her hair or the soft skin of her cheeks where there are still red lines marking the edge of her mask - it's how small and defeated she looks next to Bellamy, who is staring at her with an unreadable emotion furrowing his brows. 

"For a while I convinced myself you had lured her from me," Clarke hears Abby saying as she gets closer. "I didn't really believe it, but it was easier to pretend than admit I'd done wrong both as a mother and a Chancellor."

Clarke stiffens as she puts the pieces together and just then, Bellamy and Abby finally notice her shadow stretching out over the garden. Bellamy sits up like he's been caught doing something illicit, while Abby straightens with a wince as her back pops. 

"They're here," Clarke says quietly. 

"We'll go together," Bellamy says, as Abby's gaze falls upon Clarke's abdomen and lingers. 

They hadn't known how to break the news to Abby, or even if they wanted to. In the end Clarke had given Bellamy back his jacket and said whatever happened, happened. She hadn't tried to hide the curve of her stomach, but neither had she made it evident.

Now she waits for Abby to say something. To ask why they didn't tell her sooner, to protest against Clarke going to face down Lexa's army, as though she'd be any safer inside Arkadia's barely-manned walls than outside, to try in vain to protect her daughter one last time. But Abby only gives Clarke a rueful smile and stands up. She crosses the distance between them in a few quick steps, drops a quick kiss on her forehead, and hugs her. Clarke swallows the lump in her throat as she breathes in the familiar scent of antiseptic.

"Mom - " she begins helplessly. She's not sure what she's about to say, if she's going to apologize for the way they left Arkadia all those years ago, for the way she built a new life that didn't leave much room for her mother in it - but Abby doesn't wait for her to find words.

"You have defied death so many times. Maybe you can save us all again," Abby murmurs, her eyes watering. Before Clarke can even think how to answer she nods towards Bellamy and strides off, her posture perfect and proud as if she hadn't just looked so tired and vulnerable a moment ago. 

_I won’t let them kill you_ , Clarke vows quietly, watching her retreating back through blurred eyes. She wipes the tears away as she feels more than she hears or sees Bellamy come to her side.

"Hell of a time for you guys to finally have a heart to heart," Clarke mutters. For the first time she feels guilty for holding her mother at a distance the past few years. She wouldn't have asked permission to love Bellamy in all the ways she has, but maybe it would have been nice to talk about it instead of showing up on the eve of war with marriage tattoos and four months pregnant.

"Do you want my jacket back?" Bellamy asks lowly. 

"No," Clarke says, brushing her fingertips over her stomach. She raises her chin. "Let them see me as a symbol of life."

Their fingers brush together at their sides, and Clarke grabs on and squeezes tight, trying to cram as much comfort into that one touch as she can, feeling the seconds slip past them. Neither she nor Bellamy say anything else, but he gives her a jerky nod, and they wordlessly move towards the others. Bellamy gestures to the guards manning the gate to open it up, and they begin to part with tired creaks. Lexa's army is perfectly framed in the widening gap.

McCreary seems to have figured out something is about to happen because he is wriggling valiantly in the wagon Bellamy and Miller have loaded him into. Indra’s warriors tied him up so thoroughly, his limbs pinned to his body with painfully tight knots, that all he can do is try to squirm and make angry noises around the gag in his mouth. When Clarke meets his gaze, his eyes narrow with pure hatred. 

“Let’s not do this the hard way,” Clarke tells him, and picks up the wagon’s handle. 

“Madi?” Bellamy asks, seeing the girl trotting determinedly on Indra’s heels. “You sure you don’t want to stick with Emori and Raven?”

“Yes, and I already convinced Clarke,” Madi complains. “You might need me.”

Clarke and Bellamy exchange a _look_ , and Clarke knows he’s hoping as much as she is that it never comes to that. You should never need children in a war. She’s hoping one day they’ll build a world where that’s finally true. 

“Stay close to me, please,” Clarke murmurs to her. If the worst happens, Madi should be spared, but - just in case.

Lexa sits as regal and stoic as ever astride a dappled gray horse at the head of her vanguard, her signature red velvet cape draped over her hair like a mourning veil. Indra walks ahead of them as she dismounts, and the briefest flicker of a smile appears on Lexa’s face as she and Indra grasp each other’s forearms. Clarke doesn’t wait for them to finish their murmured greeting before she hauls McCreary’s wagon forward with one last powerful tug and kicks it towards Lexa. McCreary nearly wriggles off the side of the wagon before Indra raises her foot and nudges him back in with a disgusted look.

"I took care of your enemy for you. _Again_." Clarke says flatly. She’s distantly aware of Bellamy at her side, radiating quiet fury, of Madi lurking behind them and peeking through the gap between their arms, of Indra’s warriors lurking several steps behind them. She idly wonders what orders Indra has given if Lexa doesn’t back down, but only for a second. The forefront of her mind is focused on staring Lexa down, sharpening her gaze into every ounce of pain she felt at her betrayal and using that to burn away any fear. Lexa’s flinch is barely visible. She breaks the stare first to look down at McCreary’s wriggling, grunting body, and Clarke’s lips twitch into a victorious smirk before she flattens it again. 

“I did what I had to do,” Lexa says coolly, and this is a shock - it’s almost an apology, coming from her. Bellamy’s knuckles brush against Clarke’s arm and she manages to center herself on that tiny touch.

"You can do me a favour and turn your army around and leave this time, too,” Clarke says. “Or they can make themselves useful and go rebuild the Shallow Valley.”

"My people will wonder how you made these strangers from the sky leave so easily,” Lexa says.

“Let them wonder," Bellamy all but growls. "Get your goddamn army off of Skaikru territory or we'll show you what we threatened them with.”

“Do you remember the bomb we let drop on Tondc?” Clarke whispers, stepping forward. Lexa shifts her weight a fraction of an inch backwards before steeling herself. Clarke hopes she looks terrifying. She hopes she looks like every mistake that’s ever haunted Lexa come to life. “If your army comes any closer, you'll see another one. Turn around, and go home. Arkadia is innocent.”

_Don't make me do it. Don't make me tell Monty to kill hundreds of people again._

Lexa swallows hard. When she speaks again her voice is only loud enough to carry to their small group, not the vanguard at her heels or the army standing proud in the remains of the crops. 

“I am sorry, Clarke,” she says. “But I don’t have as much control over this army as you hope I do. My leadership… has been seriously questioned the past few years. If I turn them around, I am likely to lose the remaining loyalty of the twelve clans, and a collapsing coalition will mean war. For all of us, Arkadia included. It isn’t fair, but there is no way out of this that spares Arkadia.”

“If the clans knew there was another nightblood old enough to rule, they’d kill you, right?” Madi asks, and Clarke, having almost forgotten she was hiding behind her and Bellamy, startles as she pushes her way forward to glare up at Lexa. Before Lexa can respond, Madi draws the dagger Indra gave to her. A lot of things happen at once - Indra lets out a cry and jumps forward to shield Lexa, Bellamy lunges for Madi and pulls her out of swords-reach, and Madi slices open her own palm with one brave, purposeful cut.

The world goes still, and Clarke forgets to breathe.

“No,” Lexa whispers at the sight of Madi’s tightly closed fist. 

Madi opens it, revealing inky-black blood beading along the cut. There’s no mistaking that colour in full sunlight. _The bandages in the forest_ , Clarke realizes. _She wouldn’t let me look at her injuries. She said she wasn’t safe_. Madi was afraid of being found out, and now, for some reason, she’s shown her secret to the most dangerous person who could know it. Clarke grabs her hand and covers it with her own, larger palm to hide it from the watching vanguard. Her mouth is dry with fear. The gamble she and Monty have pulled with Mount Weather’s missiles is nothing compared to this.

“I’m _Louwada Kliron_ , and _that_ man murdered my people and laughed over their bodies,” Madi says, pointing at McCreary’s trussed up body. “You don’t get to decide if his death is revenge enough. _I do_. Take your army and leave Skaikru alone, or I’ll challenge you for the flame.”

“No,” Clarke whispers, kneeling down next to her. “No, Madi, you’re a _child_ , don’t sacrifice this - “

Madi shakes her off roughly and raises her chin defiantly at Lexa. Clarke meets Bellamy’s gaze over her head and he looks as afraid as she does. 

“Heda - “ Indra murmurs, but Lexa raises a hand sharply and bows her head. 

“I will go,” she says. “I have been bested. I will take my army and go, if you keep your blood to yourself, .”

Lexa turns on her heel and marches back towards her grazing horse so quickly that she does not see the way Madi’s shoulders sag in relief at her words. Clarke grabs her before she can sway too far backwards and lose her balance, and Madi leaps the rest of the way into Clarke’s arms, her bony arms thrown around Clarke’s neck and her whole body shaking like a leaf. 

“That was so scary,” Madi says. 

"It was stupid," Clarke scolds, wondering if Madi can tell she's trembling too. "Very brave of you, but also stupid."

"I just tried to pretend I was you," Madi whispers. "How do you do it?"

“I don’t know,” Clarke murmurs, staring over Madi’s shoulder as Lexa climbs onto her mount and gestures her army towards the woods they came out of. Parts of her vanguard peel off to grab McCreary’s body, undoing some of the ropes around his legs so that he can walk behind them. Clarke watches him try to slam his forehead into a warrior’s bone-encrusted mask and get several punches to the stomach for his trouble, and almost feels sorry for him. He’ll die like Finn would have, with no one to mercy-kill him. He’ll die for every Doah villager who didn’t pick up a sword. He’ll die for Arkadia and for the rest of Eligius, gone into parts unknown. 

Clarke closes her eyes and lets out the last of the breath she’s been holding all this time as Bellamy kneels next to them and joins their embrace. 

“Can we go home?” she murmurs. She knows it won’t happen immediately. They have to retrieve Monty, and explain everything to her mother and Kane, and if Lexa really can't repair the cracks in her coalition's loyalty then who knows what could happen but -

“Yeah,” Bellamy promises, rubbing soothing circles into her back. “We’ll be home soon.”

\- a year and a half earlier

After a few years the delinquents learn how to pass the winter without losing themselves to the despair of gray skies and walls that close in on them. The answer is mostly parties. A _lot_ of parties.

In some ways it’s almost like the dropship days. No responsibility, no one to answer to, just music on the intercoms and laughter that nearly drowns it out. Though most of them live in the cabins above ground year-round now, everyone’s come back inside the bunker to the old cafeteria. The tables and benches have all been shoved to the sides of the room, leaving a ring in the center where Harper is teaching everyone a square dance she learned on their last trading mission to Polis. Clarke smiles as she watches Harper twirl, her hands high above her head, wrists bent, the tiny white flowers woven into her braided hair scattering petals in her wake. Murphy, of all people, is her partner, the faintest of smiles on his face as he raises his arm to mirror her and gives her an axis to spin around. How strange a world they’ve come to live in. Space-born delinquents dancing Grounder steps to pre-apocalypse music. It doesn’t fit at all. It fits _because_ it doesn’t fit.

Clarke raises her tin of moonshine up to her mouth and takes a sweet sip as she scans the room. Bellamy is leaning against a pillar with Miller, both of them with their heads bent together, either having a conversation or intently pretending to have one to avoid being swept into the dancing. Raven is seated on one of the benches shoved to the room’s side like Clarke, eating toasted nuts out of a jar, and Clarke is about to get up and go sit with her before she picks out all the good ones. Just then, Harper excuses herself from the riotous dancing and makes a beeline for the empty spot next to Clarke. Her face is flushed red with exertion and delight. She’s so happy it looks like it’s glowing from underneath her skin. Clarke can’t help but smile in response as she throws herself onto the other half of the bench with a satisfied groan. 

“You’re a pretty good dance teacher,” Clarke says. 

“Thanks,” Harper says, sweeping back the sweaty strands of hair that have started to escape her braid. Intricate work. Must be Monroe’s handiwork, she’s the best at braids. Harper leans her head against Clarke’s shoulder and giggles. “Oh,” she says, leaning forward to sniff at Clarke’s moonshine. “That smells so good, what is it?”

“Can I tell you a secret?” Clarke says furtively. Harper’s eyes immediately light up mischievously. “We didn’t run out of elderberry moonshine. I stole the last bottle and hid it in my cabin.” Harper throws her head back and laughs. Clarke takes another sip and grins around the sharp, fruity taste. “You want some?” she asks, offering the tin.

"Oh, I shouldn't." Harper bites her lip, her eyes downcast for a moment. She wriggles closer to Clarke and looks around furtively, but no one is nearby. Not near enough to hear them speak over the music blaring from the intercom. “Can I tell you a secret?” Harper asks, echoing Clarke. “I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant.”

Later, Clarke will blame the alcohol on her incredibly delayed reaction. It takes her a moment to register Harper’s words as her doctor and her leader - and finally, as her friend. 

“Oh, fuck,” Clarke says. “We have pregnancy tests in - “

“No I’m _really_ sure,” Harper says with a bashful smile. “I’ve never been late before, and it’s been a few weeks.”

“Holy shit,” Clarke says, because regular language doesn’t seem to express the weird feeling she’s getting in her chest right now. It’s not pain. There’s a tinge of worry for Harper, since this will be the first pregnancy Clarke will have ever supervised from start to finish, but mostly it’s… _hope_. She downs the rest of her elderberry drink and stands. “We have an ultrasound machine. You wanna see them?”

“Fuck, yes,” Harper says, grabbing her hand. They sneak out of the party, furiously shushing each other’s giggles. Clarke’s excuse is that she’s already halfway drunk, but as far as she can tell Harper is running off the simple euphoria of sharing such a magnificent secret. The medbay’s harsh white lighting sobers Clarke up a little. She straightens up and puts on a competent doctor face as Harper climbs into a cot and pulls her shirt up to her breasts as Clarke wheels over the ultrasound machine. Harper shrieks when Clarke squirts out gel onto her bare stomach. 

“It’s cold!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Clarke says, and collapses into giggles again. 

“Get your act together,” Harper says, poking her bent head. “I want to meet my baby.”

“It might be too early to see anything,” Clarke says, darting over to the bookshelf and pulling out the textbook on fetal development that has so far been unused. The spine cracks when she opens it and carries the weight of history. Clarke holds her breath as she lowers the ultrasound wand to Harper’s stomach. She shivers as the cold gel smears, and the ultrasound image shakes like an earthquake. Then, Harper gets used to it, and Clarke twists her wrist, trying to find the angle. 

“ _There_ ,” she says, pointing to a small dark oval on the screen. Inside there is a bean-shaped gray spot smaller than a centimeter long. Harper squints at it. 

“That doesn’t look like a baby,” she says doubtfully. Clarke checks the reference pictures in her textbook with a grin. "It looks like a bean."

“It is,” she says happily. “This dark spot is the gestational sac. The bean is the start of the head and legs. That’s the umbilical cord trailing out there.”

“Hello, little bean,” Harper whispers to the image on the screen, as Clarke takes a few quick measurements. The fetus is too small for her to make any comment on organ development yet, but cross-checking with the textbook tells her that Harper is probably around six weeks along. 

“You’re probably due towards the end of the summer,” Clarke says. “That’s good. They’ll learn to walk under the sunshine.”

“Wow,” Harper says, letting her head fall back against the pillows. Clarke turns the ultrasound off and grabs a towel to clean Harper off. 

“Are you afraid?” Clarke asks. “I’ll be sober for the important bits,” she adds, and Harper laughs loudly. 

“Honestly?” Harper says. “Part of me is always going to be afraid. The ground’s dangerous. Any day someone new could take power of a clan and decide they’re going to wage war on everyone else. Our peace is so fragile.” She scoots to the edge of the cot and pats the empty space, so Clarke climbs in and lays down next to her. Harper smells like sweat and the remnants of ultrasound gel and the flowers in her braid that are surely getting crushed now. Clarke is weirdly fond of her in this moment, even more so than usual. 

“I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep,” Clarke says quietly. Six years ago she would have promised nothing bad would ever happen to Harper and her baby. Six years ago they didn’t have the graveyards they do now. “But you know Bellamy and I will do what it takes to give you the best chance at peace.”

“I know,” Harper says, letting her head fall to the side to look at Clarke directly. Her smile is crooked and full of love. “That’s why we want you guys to be the godparents.”

“Wait, really?” Clarke asks. “What about - Miller? Jasper?”

“Oh, Miller’s already going to be up changing diapers with me and Monty,” Harper says with a laugh. “As for Jasper… well, we have some plans. I mean it, Clarke. I want you and Bellamy. I can’t think of anyone better.”

“Shit,” Clarke says, her head spinning even though she’s lying still with Harper. “I don’t know what to say.”

Harper pokes her cheek. 

“Say yes,” she says, and then she takes Clarke’s hand and squeezes. “We’ll make a beautiful world. You’ll see.” She sounds so sure.

\- a year and a half later

Madi wakes with a start at the first burst of static on the rover’s radio. The top of her head nearly hits Clarke’s jaw as she jolts up from where she’d been sleeping on a balled-up sweater in Clarke’s lap, and Clarke quickly reaches a soothing hand out to her shoulder. 

“It’s okay!” she says, as Madi glances about the rover wildly. When she sees that no one else is alarmed she begins to relax and settles back into her seat, looking a little embarrassed. 

“We’re almost home,” Monty says wistfully, exchanging glances with Miller. 

“You’ll love it,” Bellamy promises Madi, his face as soft and earnest as the first touch of morning. Just then they come into range and out of the static words and notes begin to clarify. Jasper must have been practicing in the days they’ve been gone because already there is less hesitation in his strumming. His voice is hoarse. Clarke wonders if he’s been singing them home since they first sent the all-clear signal from Arkadia. 

“Where have you gone, now?” Jasper croons. “These roads were paved with the golden so-ong.” 

Clarke closes her eyes as he hums. _We are coming home, we are coming home._ Her eyes fly open as the rover hits a bump big enough to make her wince, and Madi climbs over her to look out the windshield at the light breaking through the trees. At the edge of the forest the sky opens up, wide and bright enough to make Raven flip the sunvisor down. After the darkness of the forest the gently rolling hills surrounding New Rome seem to glow. Clarke smiles at the figures tending the crop terraces who see the rover coming down the road and drop their baskets to wave. Some of them start running for the town, whooping, hands in the air. Clarke sees the news of their return spread like a ripple through water. By the time they reach the gate someone is already there to unlatch it to let them in and then - 

“Welcome to New Rome,” Emori tells Madi proudly. Madi’s mouth drops when she sees the crumbling pre-apocalypse hotel, still elegant and grand despite the vines that have taken it over and the absence of half its columns, the white stone still gleaming under the sun wherever nature hasn’t reclaimed it. The wooden cabins littered through the grounds around it aren’t as impressive in comparison, but they’re beautiful in their own ways, their doorways marked by some of the broken columns, Monroe’s windchimes hanging in the windows, solar panels on the southern slope of their roofs glinting in the sun, laundry fluttering gently between them. 

There were a few moments in that ship’s cell when Clarke really believed she’d never get to see New Rome again, and she looks at it now with brand new eyes, greedily drinking in the sights and colours. Raven parks the rover at the end of the road and Monty and Miller have the back door unlatched before the engine’s even got quiet. Clarke sees a flash of Harper’s pale hair in the growing crowd streaming in from the fields and out of cabins, and Murphy walking at a brisk pace from the kitchens with the chickens trailing behind him, their heads bobbing comically fast. 

And she knows how badly everyone wants hugs and answers to their questions, and they were careful around the Arkadians, but just in case - Clarke sends everyone to the showers because she’s not about to let them touch anything in their beautiful home until she’s sure they haven’t brought back that bug. It was hell enough to deal with the first time it swept through her camp.

The room she and Bellamy used to use in the bunker before they built the cabins above ground is nearly as they left it. A little dusty. A carving Bellamy never finished lying on its side on the nightstand. She accidentally kicks one of her pencil crayons on her way to the bathroom. Red. She was wondering where it went. She smiles faintly and uses it to twist her hair up into a bun.

Bellamy follows her inside just as she’s turned the knob and is testing the temperature of the water.

“This defeats the purpose of individual disinfection,” Clarke tells him mildly as he strips the last of his layers. The water is hot enough to sting. She can already feel her muscles relaxing.

“Don’t care,” Bellamy says roughly. He crowds her against the tiled wall and kisses her hard and filthy at first, until the urgency melts away and leaves only a sweet, grateful melancholy. They made it. They’re home. Bellamy kisses the corner of her mouth and tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “I missed my wife.”

“I’m here,” Clarke promises as he kneels in front of her. He kisses the swell of her stomach, and then lower and lower until she shivers. She lets her head fall back against the tile with a sigh of relief as he finally puts his mouth on her.

It goes without saying that they’re the last to resurface. Clarke squints as they step out of the vault into the afternoon sunlight. 

“I’m going to give Madi a tour,” Bellamy says. “Do you want to…?”

“Honestly,” Clarke says, absently rubbing her stomach. “I just want to lie down and take a nap.”

“I tired you out that much?” Bellamy asks casually.

“Don’t you start,” Clarke says, elbowing him in the ribs until he dances out of reach, still smirking at her. “If you were four months pregnant you’d be tired too.”

“All right,” Bellamy says, sneaking closer to kiss her. “I’ll see you later.”

Clarke watches him go with a smile. She shakes herself out of it before someone can notice and give her shit for checking out her own husband, and takes the long way around the village to see what she’s missed. The wildflowers lining the worn dirt paths between cabins have grown two inches taller after that rainstorm. Clarke trails her palm through them, feeling their tiny blooms tickling her skin. Bree and Kath have opened all the windows and doors to their cabin to let the air in, and Clarke hears faint snatches of their conversation, sees them lying on the floor with their bare feet up on the wall through the open doorway. She waves to Sergeant Miller as she passes him sitting in the shade of the big oak tree, and he picks up Jordan’s chubby little arm and makes him wave back at her.

“Clahk!” Jordan yells. Clarke steps off the path for a moment to play peekaboo with him until his toothy grin splits his face. Sergeant Miller bounces Jordan in his lap and tells her about the preparations they made in case they couldn’t stop Lexa’s army in a light, airy voice so Jordan won’t get scared. Clarke plucks a nearby wildflower and tickles his nose with it as she listens. 

“I’m glad it didn’t come to that,” she says at last. “Thank you for keeping everyone calm.”

“Thank you for bringing my son home,” he replies. 

With the golden afternoon sunlight streaming in through the gaps in the oak tree’s shade and the laundry fluttering on its lines around them and distant laughter from another cabin on the wind, the concept of war seems far and distant. The thing of stories. The princess slays the dragon in a single sentence and then the rest of the story is just about coming home. 

Clarke bids Sergeant Miller and Jordan goodbye and wanders further along the path to the kitchens, following the smell of baking bread. Murphy still uses the kitchens down in the bunker for fussier recipes but he swears the clay kiln they built above-ground a few summers ago is better for baking, and honestly, Clarke’s not willing to argue. Clarke dodges the chickens clucking at the threshold and raps her knuckles against the doorframe. Emori’s already there, sitting on a counter swinging her feet, tossing a too-hot pastry between her hands as Murphy says he told her so.

“Can I have a snack?” she asks hopefully. She’ll take anything. One of the pastries, if Murphy can be convinced to part from them, or some cantaloupe, or a taste of whatever’s brewing for dinner. 

“I thought you’d be here sooner,” Murphy grouches at her. His gaze flickers down to Clarke’s belly as she comes in, and Clarke can’t say she’s surprised Emori told him she’s pregnant. There are no secrets between their former thieves. But it reminds her that she and Bellamy are going to have to deal with that, later, that the news will keep spreading through their camp and the Grounder clans. The child of Wanheda and her heart will have a heavy legacy to carry, but today… Today Murphy blows on a pastry to cool it and watches her face as she bites into it gingerly. 

“Oh my god,” Clarke moans. It’s still soft and flaky from the oven and she wasn’t expecting the apricot filling at the center or the faint bite of spice - oh, it's perfect. She's died and gone to heaven and heaven is Murphy's cooking. “You’re incredible.”

“Every time,” Murphy mutters to Emori. “She does this every single time.”

He gives her two to go with the promise that she’ll save one for Bellamy (maybe) and Clarke wanders further along on her tour, reaching the cabins that back out onto the hotel’s overgrown orchards and the empty field they play soccer and beer pong in. Through the gaps between the rosebushes Clarke catches a glimpse of Bellamy’s curls and stops to look. She’d recognize him anywhere with barely anything to go off of by now. She could identify him by a patch of freckles on his shoulder and nothing else. She sees him pluck an orange off a tree and Madi leans in to watch how he peels it. Clarke lingers to watch her face when she first tastes it and lets herself smile at Madi’s widened eyes and the way she immediately clamps a hand over her mouth in shock. She’s too engrossed to register the scuffling footprints behind her. 

“Is that the Grounder kid everyone’s talking about?”

Clarke freezes at the sound of Jasper’s voice. She turns slowly, like if she moves too fast he’ll shatter or vanish or she’ll realize it was only wishful thinking, but she blinks and he’s still standing next to her, hands in his pockets, his eyes half-lidded and sleepy. There’s no one else on the path with them, no one else he could be talking to. 

It’s been five years since he talked directly to her. Five years since she got him drunk and tucked him into bed and left him behind in Arkadia. 

“Yeah,” Clarke murmurs, half-afraid the sound of her voice will remind him that he hates her. He hums quietly. 

“Cool,” is all he says.

“Pastry?” Clarke forces herself to ask, offering him one of Murphy’s gifts. Jasper takes it and stuffs half into his mouth without further ceremony. He looks thoughtful as he chews, eventually nodding in appreciation before turning around and shuffling off back to the greenhouse. And that’s all. Clarke watches the slope of his slouching shoulders vanish between the plants and slowly exhales in relief. Her ribcage feels too small for her heart and she’s suddenly overwhelmed with the hope that they’re all healing, that things might one day be okay. 

Clarke finally makes her way home. She leaves the front door open like Bree and the others to let the hot air circulate out and sets Murphy’s second pastry on the table where Bellamy will see it when he comes home. The chimes Monroe made clink against the window with the breeze. The sheets on the bed still smell like her and Bellamy. Clarke traces the grain in the bedframe Bellamy put together himself and smiles. 

Still, it’s too hot to sleep inside. She leaves the door open and lays down in the thick grass around the side of the cabin, where the lengthening shadow will keep her cool until Bellamy and Madi return. Her eyelids are heavy and tired. She feels warm, and safe, and loved. The strange sensation of her insides dancing about returns, and Clarke rests a hand over her stomach to feel the baby shift. _I know_ , she says. _We’re home_. She lets her eyes close and the sound of buzzing insects and distant laughter and the rustle of grass lulls her to sleep.

\- a year earlier

Harper goes into labour on what feels like the hottest morning of their fifth summer. Still, she insists that she’s fine for the first few hours and squats in the vegetable garden in a loose ankle-length dress and a massive sunhat until midday, pulling weeds and pausing only occasionally to rub her stomach and complain about the contractions. Clarke and Abby have spent lengthy hours sitting at their respective ends of the radio in the last few weeks talking about what to do, but in the end Clarke finds all she can do is make her drink lots of water and breathe through the cramps while Miller and Raven distract Monty.

When Jordan is finally born well after moonrise, after all that fuss and procrastination, he slips out so quickly and easily Clarke feels like there should be a catch. She marvels at the miracle of his existence as she washes him. Ten perfect fingers, and ten perfect toes, and Monty’s dark hair, and an ear-splitting wail she can’t believe comes from his tiny, tiny lungs. The first baby born in New Rome. Harper kisses him all over his wrinkly, wailing face.

“Hello, little bean,” she says, warm and delighted despite her exhaustion. Clarke ducks her head to hide her smile as everyone begins to crowd in on her, wanting a glimpse of their newest villager. She knows Harper’s more than capable enough of telling them to fuck off when she’s had enough, so she finishes cleaning up and hugs Monty and Miller goodbye, leaving them to celebrate. She passes Sergeant Miller sitting in the garden with Monroe, wondering aloud if this makes him a grandpa-in-law. 

A welcome breeze tickles the back of her sweat-drenched neck. A cloud of moths accompanies every lantern along the path. Clarke and Bellamy’s cabin is dark and silent, not even the flicker of a candle at the edges of the window. She approaches it with some confusion, wondering where he could be, and then a shadow leans out over the edge of the roof and whistles at her. 

“Bellamy?” Clarke asks incredulously, squinting in the darkness to try and make out his face. It’s a new moon tonight and the nearest lanterns are running low on wax to burn. She can barely see him. 

“There’s a ladder on the other side,” he tells her. “Come up, I’ll hold it still.”

She throws her first aid kit into the darkened cabin, not caring where it lands, and finds her way up the ladder by blind touch. The dry thatching on the roof crinkles loudly under her weight as she crawls towards Bellamy’s voice. The real roof is made of corrugated metal salvage but they cover it in new thatching every spring to muffle the sound of rain on metal that would otherwise keep them up all night and hide the blinding reflection of sunlight that’s bad enough from the solar panels. This late into such a dry summer, the thatching is already wilted and yellow and itchy against Clarke’s skin as she lays back next to Bellamy. 

“So why are we up here when we have a perfectly good bed inside?” she asks him, feeling in the dark for his hand. He gives her fingers a quick squeeze. 

“There’s a meteor shower,” he says. “If you can stay awake for it. I’ve seen sixteen already.”

“Sixteen?” Clarke muses, and he interrupts her with a cry of delight, pointing towards a bright streak against the deep blue sky. Clarke gasps as it vanishes as quickly as it came and squeezes Bellamy’s hand back. 

“I heard cheers earlier,” Bellamy says. “I assume the birth went well?”

“Really well,” Clarke says warmly. “He took his time, but he came out beautifully. They’re naming him Jordan.”

“Putting the new in New Rome,” Bellamy says, and Clarke snickers into his shoulder. She doesn’t even care that the roof is hot and itchy against her back or that she had to follow Harper around while she was being stubborn all day. It’s enough to be laying up here with her partner, waiting for the next shooting star, certain that tomorrow will be a good day, and the day after that, and the day after that, too. She catches sight of another meteor streaking across their view, a longer trail than the first one, and then a second.

“There’s another one!” she says quickly, and she can’t see it but she knows Bellamy is grinning next to her. 

“Hey, Clarke?” he asks, deliberate.

“Hmm?”

She lets her head loll to the side, trying to trace his profile against the night’s encroaching darkness, and hears more than she sees him sit up on his elbow. His hand finds her shoulder, traces her neck up to the side of her cheek. His thumb strokes over her lips and she feels the warmth of his breath a split-second before he kisses her, gently and without hurry as the crickets serenade them.

“What?” Clarke murmurs when they finally part. Bellamy noses against her cheek.

“I know what I’d wish for now,” he says simply. Behind his head, the stars keep falling. 

  
_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (hint hint: he'd wish for a baby)
> 
>  _*screams*_ IT’S DONE! I desperately hope you guys enjoyed the journey and my timelines weren’t too confusing. If you enjoyed this insanely indulgent fic and want to help spread the word, its associated tumblr post is [here](https://kindclaws.tumblr.com/post/634416610211512320/in-grief-demeter-circles-the-earth-two-days-ago). Thank you for reading so far, for so many comments and fic award nominations, and to everyone who listened to me complain in my writing updates tag and kept telling me they were excited to read this when I was still being secretive and only posting snippets of it, you guys are just, the best. The very best. 
> 
> I've had some people ask about my outlining process or tell me they want to outline their stories but don't know how to start - luckily I kept most of my outline for this fic and I wrote an essay explaining a bunch of plot and pacing choices that I will try to post a link on tumblr sometime this week, if anyone else here is interested!
> 
> Translations in case the work skin didn't work for you:  
> Hanch au dison? - how much for this one?  
> Au hainofi - For the princess  
> Chof - thank you  
> Strikon - little one.
> 
> BONUS scene: In the woods at one end of the twisted remnants of the Golden Gate bridge, a lone figure unfurls a well-loved map and traces his finger along the penmarked route cutting diagonally against what used to be the United States of America. The screech of heavy metal vocals is already faint in the distance. Zeke lowers the map and sweeps a critical eye over the bikes at his disposal. Weeds have cracked the century-old parking lot apart. The Harley-Davidson sign out front lies collapsed on its side, the glass logo long gone and only the shape of the metal frame left to clue him in. It’ll take a lot of work to get one of these motorcycles running, and that’s if he’s lucky to find one whose wheel axles haven’t completely collapsed from being left stationary for a hundred and three years. But it’ll be worth the look on Raven’s face. He rolls up his sleeves and gets to work.


End file.
